I admit it – I never intended to sell bowl cozies. You could say I was a bowl cozy snob. I saw them stacked haphazardly on tables at craft fairs, looking like something the seller or the craftsperson hadn’t put much pride into making or displaying, and they didn’t seem like something I wanted spend time making.
My attitude toward bowl cozies started to change during our first New Hampshire winter when many bowls of hot soup and stew were consumed while binge-watching our favorite detective series on PBS. The idea of having a cozy to nest that hot bowl in started to make sense.
But if I was going to make them, my cozies had to be the best!
I designed a cozy that can stand up to the rigors of frequent forays in laundry. Juan and I enthusiastically tested the prototypes. I tried using my cozy for snacks, without the bowl which led to the Big Cozy Fail when I tried warming up tortilla chips in a cozy in the microwave! The chips got warm all right, but the cozy fell apart! After only 30 seconds, the polyester thread I had sewn it with, melted! I had some more research to do if I was going to offer the best cozies.
Choosing cotton fabric and thread was the easy part.
But the batting turned out to be a challenge. I use Insul-Fleece™ batting in my Tortilla Keeper and Casserole Cozy because its polyester fibers are punched into aluminized polyethylene to reflect heat or cold – which might seem like a good idea for a bowl cozy. But it is definitely not suitable for use in a microwave!
And although quilter’s batting is available in cotton, it has a polyester scrim that is NOT microwave-safe. I must not be the first person who didn’t want to spend hours peeling away the scrim on my batting, because I discovered a “scrimless” cotton batting called Wrap-N-Zap® that’s 100% cotton with no scrim! I know, that bit about peeling my scrim sounds kinda perverse – clearly I’ve fallen into the sewer’s swamp.
With my batting issues resolved, I turned my attention to the fabric. If folks want to put snacks directly into their cozy, the lining has to be food-safe – and the go-to fabric for food has always been linen.
So, Oeko Tex certified linen for the lining… playful quilter’s cotton prints for the exterior… Wrap-N-Zap batting… 100% cotton thread… rugged construction… now that’s a bowl cozy worthy of my label!
Bowl Cozies turned out to be the most popular item on my website!
And now, you can make your own bowl cozies, using the same materials I use, following step-by-step, illustrated instructions. The Made By Me! Sewing Project Kit for Bowl Cozies & Roll-up Napkins has everything you need to make 2 Bowl Cozies and 2 matching Roll-up Napkins. Everything is pre-cut and most people can complete the project in an afternoon.
Warning – you might make your first set as a gift, but then you’ll want a set for yourself – so better buy 2!
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