tea bags | Mr X Stitch

I don’t know about you but it’s always time for that classic drink of comfort in our house. Builders, peppermint, fruit - as long as it’s that same old drink we love it. The only bit that annoys me is the papery bit on the end of the string. I often a) drop it in my tea, b) accidentally pull it off, or c) both… So I came up with a scrap busting - and more importantly - lets save and tag your tea. First of all I grabbed a used bag, drew a little plan and chose some random scraps. Scottie dog for the outside as its cute and plain greeny grey (that's a technical term somewhere I'm sure) for the inside. Then I cut them out. My pattern for the tea tag My fabric choices - loooooove Scottie dogs, my brother has two I wanted to do a button hole on my sewing machine for this and I’ve never actually done one before, so first of all I experimented with that. It was quite easy. I just read the notes in my Janome sewing machine handbook and it worked first time, phew. Like most of you probably, I don't always read the instructions, but this time it really paid off. The foot you use for button holes is huge and was a bit weird. Once I was happy with that process I changed back to a normal sewing foot and sewed around my tag with the wrong sides together, turned it the right way round and filled in the hole. Then I made a button hole 2 cm tall. The button hole is just big enough to fit the tea tag through. Tag your tea in action! I am going to enjoy seeing what you readers do too, so tag us in via instagram in you have had a go and want to show! My button hole in the sewn around tag - and the huge weird button hole sewing foot Next I had to brace myself and cut the hole inside the button hole border I'd made with a stitch ripper - eep. Thankfully this also worked first time, ha ha. It worked! The ripped hole and the demon stitch ripper... Next I added poppers so I could keep the "tag your tea" closed when I was using it. It is all in the little details people! My Craft Rocks mug, the tea tag complete with poppers and my favourite tea, Belfast Brew, to remind me of home So now I just needed to pop the tag through the button hole, pop the poppers and pop the tea bag in the cup, hoorah. That's a lot of popping! tag your tea inserted... And ready to drink, yum! Problem solved and my tea will be much funkier from now on. And if I drop this tag in my tea I can just pull it out easily and pop it in the washing machine and it’s fixed instead of it floating in my tea, burning my fingers when I try to remove it, and making my tea taste like paper :-) Best song for tag making: Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard (sugar, tea, closest I could get…) Best cake: Tea loaf (of course) Costs The fabric was all leftover scraps, and I could have avoided having to use a sewing machine by making the hole with scissors and sewing round the edge by hand. So the only cost was the poppers which I bought in a bigger packet for £2. I have lots left over for future projects. So it was almost free for your drink! What creations have you come up with to make life easier when you eat or drink? There must be loads of kitchen sewing out there.