Monogrammed Water Bottle Holders

Every year my oldest goes to Girl's Camp for one week with the Young Women's program at our church.  Our stake has a mail program where we can send gifts and notes up to the girls.  This is very popular and I try to do a little something every day.  She also takes her best friend from school with her, so I have double the trouble to be creative for.

This year I decided to start the week off with water bottle holders.  Because of her dietary restrictions she has to take her own supplemental food and (distilled) water.  Since I want her to be drinking lots of that out in the summer heat, I thought a holder would keep reminding her for me :)

My scrap pile is also overrun with old jeans--I just don't seem to be able to throw them out.  I'm working on camping quilts ... but in the meantime I look for other projects to use them and I fell in love with this idea.  I tweaked a couple of tutorials, but this is what I came up with--and I love it.  Red, white and blue is always a winning combo for me :)

This is the tutorial I mostly used.  I tweaked the sizes a little bit.  One thing I found out is that I need to cut the lining 1/4 to 1/3 inch larger than the outside piece because the bulk of the denim and insulbrite seriously shrunk it--even with pinning.  I think if you used an outside and lining that were similar weight this would not be as much of an issue.

     

If I had this to do again, I would not do the frenched seams--they just create more bulk.  I'd probably do a more traditional liner like I do for my bags--that way the handles are also sewn in and not as obvious.

For the monograms, I used this site.  I wanted to use the celtic knot one, but I didn't like the look for the letters I needed.  (Also, if you click on the "Patterns" tab at the top of the page, there are some really cool designs with lots of possibilities.)  I tried several ways to trace/outline the designs after I printed them out, but the denim  was uncooperative, so I ended up free-handing it.  That turned out OK, but not great.  I was pretty frustrated and disappointed after I finished with the paints, but I'm much happier with them now that they're dried.

I think I'll put some of those flavoring drops in the pocket with a little note for them.  Hope they enjoy them!