Lavender tea cups -tutorial

Do you have a favorite collection of fabrics that you cherish so much that you want to use every single scrap out of it? Even the selvages????Or you've been admiring some of the awesome selvage projects, wanting to try some of these and use some of the selvages you've been collecting? Or you have smaller quilt leftover pieces that you don't know how to use?

Well, I have a perfect project for you!

It is simple, it is useful and it is so fun to make and it's gorgeous! It can be a great present too:)

Lavender tea cups :)

TIP:If you are allergic to lavender, you can always substitute the lavender with the stuffing and make these cups to be cute pincushions.
Or they can be filled with wheat, rice, or another grain that you can warm in a microwave and can use to keep warm on a cold night or to soothe tired muscles. Your cups can be heated in the microwave, approx. 2 minutes on the max. temperature

Needed supplies: 

- sewing machine
Please note that I used mostly serger to assemble these (as it is much quicker), but sewing machine is more than enough:)
- scissors and pins
- iron
- lavender seeds
- paper template
download it HERE, there are 3 dimensions to mix and match!
- cotton fabric scraps
I used the gorgeous fabrics from the Rock 'n Romance fabric collection by Pat Bravo for Art Gallery fabrics that are great for this project (the quality and the weight are just perfect)
- piece of ribbon or cord-for the handle 
 (even that you can totally use just a strip of fabric cut on the bias, folded along the longer edge), approx. 3-5" per cup



To start, you just need to download the template HERE , print and cut it.



Before cutting the fabrics into tea cups, the fabrics have to be assembled the way you want them to be as cups(so if you want little patchwork cups, you need to do that before cutting)
You can embellish your fabric pieces with some embroidery (you can embroider the name of the person, the tea name, some quote etc.), buttons and similar details.





Cut the fabrics into desired shapes-you need 2 of each shape to get one tea cup.

Making the handles: to make simple handles, you can use any cute ribbon or strip of fabric cut on the bias, folded along the longer edge. Or you can make nice handles with fabric strip , placing some cord inside. To do that, fold the fabric strip in half(preferable cut on bias), lengthwise, right side inside and sew along the long side using 1 cm seam allowance. Turn the tube piece inside out using the safety pin. With a safety pin than place some cord within the fabric tube. To obtain nice rounded handles, the tube has to be just slightly larger than the cord (mine are not perfect, as I was in a hurry, I made them too large-but next time I'll have that in mind;)





Sew the handle to one of the 2 tea cup's shapes-be sure to avoid placing the handle close to the corners: place it at least 1/2" away from the both corners.




Now you just need to place the cup's shapes right sides together(handle inside) and using the straight stitch ( 1/4 "(1 cm) seam allowance) sew the shapes together, leaving the bottom side-gap open that will allow turning the cup inside out.




Secure the end of your seams with back stitching or a lock stitch to prevent the sewing from ripping.



Turn it.







Now, you'll need to fill it with lavender, (or with the stuffing if you are making them as pincushions) just before closing-sewing the gap;)





You can sew it with the machine and maybe add some embellishing stitch, you can sew it all the way around with the straight stitch or you can use just the "invisible" ladder stitch ( HERE is the great tutorial about ladder stitches)

Happy sewing!:)
Katarina