FAL Finish: Penguin Hot Water Bottle Cover

Item fourteen on my Q4 FAL list was a hot water bottle cover for my niece.  I made one for myself earlier in the year which my niece saw and fell in love with.  Here's mine:

For hers, I decided on a slightly different approach as mine is quite difficult to get the bottle in and out of (I should have added more than 1.5" all round when drawing round the hot water bottle, particularly round the neck!) so I thought a pouch style would be easier.


Here's the penguin:

Here he is with the background added:

Here he is with the echo quilting (five rounds was more than enough for me so I embroidered over some of the background stars with dark blue coton a broder but that's in the next picture, not this one):

And here he is finished:

I added poppers to the flap to made it easy to open/close and now want to add them to everything!  

Here's how it looks with a(n empty) hot water bottle in it:

All in all, I'm really pleased with it and would definitely make a cover like this again, it was much easier than all that shaping round the neck and, after quite a lot of dithering and measuring of empty and full hot water bottles, it fits really well - snug enough to not wibble-wobble about in it, but roomy enough to be easy to get in and out.  In case you want to make one (and in case I lose my piece of paper with the measurements on it!), here are the dimensions I cut the front and back panels after quilting:

Front panel: 10.25" x 14"

Back panel: 10.25" x 18.25"

Binding (double fold (like on a quilt) cut on the bias): 2.625", but I'd cut it at 2.75" in future as four layers of wadding (two in each panel) and four layers of fabric end up being quite bulky and an extra 1/8" of an inch would have been useful when sewing down on the back.


Someone was convinced the cover was for them:

This is a verrrrrry cosy sleeping bag, fanks for making it for us.  What does you mean, it's not for us? *tuts*

Thanks for popping in!