Crafty Thursdays: Tea Caddy

This week the crafty gang made a travel tea caddy. We created this because I like to carry different kinds of tea with me - both caffeinated and noncaffeinated - when I travel. You'll need a sewing machine for this one, but it's pretty easy once you get going.

Materials:

• Fabric - for the outside and the lining. You can use scraps.
• Cutting table
• Rotary cutter
• Sewing machine
• Tea bags to help you measure
• Thread
• A piece of ribbon

Step One:

Cut out your outside piece of fabric. We made our caddy with four pockets for tea, so the dimensions were 13 inches by 11 inches. Repeat for your inside lining fabric. They should be the same size.

Step Two:
Put your two fabrics together with the patterns facing one another. This means you'll be looking at the back side of the fabric. Sew a seam around the edges of the square, leaving a small opening at one corner as if you were making a pillow.

Step Three:
Turn the fabric right side out through the opening. Iron the edges to flatten. Your opening should look like the one below. 

Step Four:

Hand sew the opening so it's now closed.

Step Five:

Fold your fabric as pictured below. Using a tea packet, measure how big the pockets should be. Then pin where you would like the pocket edges to hit. Stitch the pockets. We used a machine here but you could also do it by hand. 

Here's what it looks like when the pockets are done:

Step Six:
Fold you caddy and tie with a ribbon. And you're ready to travel with your tea. The pictures below show how we folded it.

The final project:

You can find Mystery Playground on Twitter @MysteryPlaygrnd and on Facebook.