Keep your cuppa warm with this tea cosy

This is a great idea from Liza. Now we know Ikea's thick padded potholders make fantastic tea cosies too.

Liza says, "I love tea in a teapot, and it's hard to find a good, well padded, tea cosy in the US, so a few years ago I started making my own. Usually I make them from scratch, but it occurred to me that I could use these Ikea potholders that had been lying around unused. They were too big as potholders, but worked fine for an individual teapot cosy.

1. I unpicked the binding off 3 of the 4 edges of both the squares.

2. I cut each square into a bulbous, semi-circular shape, keeping the binding attached on one potholder, cutting it off on the other.

3. I joined the 2 semicircles together at their round sides by fitting the attached binding over both of them and sewing together. I actually had to hand sew this part, as my sewing machine wasn't up to the thickness, so this was the most time-consuming part (about an hour). I also made a little loop at the end with some of the extra binding (there's a lot left over), because I like to hang my cosies up on hooks in the kitchen.

And there you have a teacosy.

You can compare with another cosy I made previously, and with a small teapot for size. Actually this cosy is not quite as effective at heat-conservation as my regular ones (since it's not quite as well padded) but it was so easy to make and cute that it's fine."