A fabric bowl cozy is a microwave-safe, insulated holder designed to keep bowls warm. This free bowl cozy pattern comes in three sizes. Constructed with a layer of cotton batting, it features corner grips for convenient handling.
Bowl cozy’s are not just great for hot bowls of soup, they are perfect for small bowls for cooking frozen peas or sweetcorn, and for a cold bowl of ice cream. Not long ago friends and I were discussing the merits of making bowl cozy’s, as someone who doesn’t drink soup I was sceptical. Now I am converted!
Fabric bowl cozy’s are quick to make, great for fabric scraps and a perfect project for beginner sewers.
Table of Contents
Free Bowl Cozy Pattern
Download the free pattern pieces in three different sizes. This is optional. The pattern is a fabric square with dart positions marked, alternatively you can mark this out with a quilters ruler and a fabric marker.
These sizes are my three bowls from Denby. Your bowls maybe different – see below to work out how to change the pattern to fit your bowls.
Free Bowl Cozy Pattern Download
Materials for bowl cozy’s
Choose cotton all the way – this is super important due to the heat of the microwave, the last thing you want is the smell of melting plastic from polyester thread – the thought takes me back to school days and burning fibre tests!
- Fat Quarter 100% Cotton
- Cotton wadding (WrapNZap is purpose made for bowl cozy’s)
- Cotton thread
If you are using pieces of fabric from your stash and are not quite sure if the fabric is cotton or a cotton polyester blend you can carry out a burn test. Cotton will ignite quickly, it will smell of paper, leaves or wood. If your fabric has a synthetic fibre mixed in it will smell plasticky or chemically, and will leave a shiny hard plastic bead.
Learn more about burn tests.
How to sew up your fabric bowl cozy pattern
Note seam allowance is 1/4″.
For each bowl cozy you need two squares of fabric and one of wadding. Personally I like to use two different fabrics for interest and contrast. The most common size is 10″ square. See below for further sizes and how to work out sizes for your bowls.
Place your cotton batting on the wrong side of a piece of fabric (which will be facing your bowl). Pin in place.
Next we are going to sew diagonal lines corner to corner to hold the batting in place. You may wish to mark these stitch lines with taylors chalk or fabric marker. I have used a regular sewing foot with a stitch length of 2.8 to sew the drawn lines.
Now let’s sew further quilting lines from the middle of one side to the middle of the opposite side.
We are going to sew four darts to add shape to the bowl cozy. Fold your fabric and batting in half, right sides of the fabric facing each other. Mark 1″ from the fold on the side, and 2″ along the fold, mark this triangular line as a sewing guide. Sew the dart ensuring you back stitch at each end of the dart. Repeat for the opposite end of the fold.
Open your fabric out, then refold with opposite sides facing each other. Repeat with two more darts as above. trim the dart seam allowance.
The next step is to repeat the process with your plain fabric, adding four darts, and trimming the seam allowance.
Place the the fabric bowls rights sides together, carefully aligning the darts and corner points. Add a hanging loop at this stage, if you would like to.
Machine stitch around the top edge with a seam allowance of 1/4″, allow a turning gap of 2″ along one edge.
Trim the seam allowance and the corners, then turn finished bowl right sides out. Push out the points with a chopstick or similar.
Fold in the raw edges along the turning gap, give the fabric cozy a good press then top stitch along the top edge to finish.
How to add a hanging loop (personal preference)
Cut a strip of cotton fabric 1 1/2 by 3″. Fold the fabric in half and press. Open out, and fold the raw edges into the middle creased line, press, and fold in half again. Thus enclosing the raw edges.
Fold in half along the original fold, thus enclosing the raw edges. Top stitch along each edge.
Fold the fabric in half to create your hanging loop and place on one of the corners of the fabric bowl.
Complete the bowl cozy as above.
For those of you who prefer video instructions check out my you tube video.
How to adjust the size of the bowl cozy pattern to suit your bowls
Measure the width of your bowl, which we will call X, add 2″ for the dart, add 1″ for four 1/4 seam allowances.
X + 2 + 1″ = square size
The length of the dart influences the width of the inner base of the bowl cozy, and the height of the bowl cozy. For example a 2 1/2 ” length of dart makes the side of the diy bowl cozy 1 1/4″” in height.
How do I wash the the fabric bowl cozy?
Place your DIY bowl cozies in your washing machine as you would any cotton item, there should be no issues with shrinkage at all.
If you are looking for further sewing projects for the kitchen then do check out:
Now I have made four I’m tempted to keep sewing, the simple bowl cozys make great gifts after all! I hope you have enjoyed this cozy sewing pattern, a great beginner sewing project. Do pin for later,
