Make an Apple Cozy

9-inch diameter plate

1/4 yard of red fleece fabric

Marker

1/16-inch hole punch (optional)

Green felt

Green embroidery floss

Large sewing needle

Elastic cord

Safety pin

Lay the plate on the fleece and trace around it with a marker. Cut out the circle. Punch an even number of holes (our cozy has 50) around the edge of the fleece circle, about a half-inch from the edge and a half-inch apart. If you don't have a small punch, make tiny snips with scissors instead.

Cut a leaf shape from the green felt. With the embroidery floss and needle, sew a simple running stitch down the center of the leaf from one end to the other. Sew back up the line to where you started, filling in the spaces left in the original stitch line.

Sew the top of the leaf near the edge of the circle.

Cut a 10-inch length of elastic cord. Safety-pin one end to the fleece to anchor it. Starting from the inside, weave the cord in and out of the holes all the way around the circle.

Tighten the elastic so that the opening is snug enough to hold an apple but has enough slack to let you remove it. Tie the ends together, trim the extra, and tuck the knot inside the cozy.

Make our cat cozy by sewing rounded triangle ears to the circle as shown. As you sew, put a small fold in the base of each ear. Add button eyes and whiskers with brown thread and a nose with pink embroidery floss.

Originally published in the September 2012 issue of FamilyFun magazine.