I’ve always previously avoided the cliche of knitted tea cosies, mainly because I rarely drink tea from a pot. I know, that makes me barely English. Sue me.

However, in the past month I have increased the number of tea cosies I’ve knitted by 200%.

The first, mainly following An Actual Pattern (from (you guessed it) Gifted)(other mass-market online booksellers are available) was a Christmas present for my lovely in-laws. Knowing that Joyce pretty much has to drink a pot of tea to get herself going in the morning, I know that this will go to good use.

Knitted from “Mille Colori Big” yarn – I was hoping that the name meant it would grow quickly – I was looking fora nice mix of colours…

However, once knitted up it came out quite a bit darker than I thought it would…

Tihs was actually knocked off mostly in the space of an afternoon. A very unusual and lovely afternoon where Steve took Joel & Lily into Wigan to shop for my Christmas present – thanks guys, by the way! – and I sat on the sofa, knitted, and watched The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Which was possibly the best Christmas present I could have had at all.

I used some solid entirely artificial yarn (left-overs from my lakeland sweater) as an accent colour for the tag & drawstring, and it seems the reverse of the “T” (for tea) looks a bit like a “J” – which is a happy coincidence for the recipients, called Tom & Joyce…

The second one was on-request. Dad’s partner Gill mentioned she could do with a tea-cosy so I stash-dived and came up with some (very scratchy) cream yarn of unknown make-up but almost certainly artificial, and some “feature” yarn in bobbly brown & cream, plus some cream mohair for some texture contrast. I figured the tea pot wasn’t going to complain about scratchiness so this was probably the *only* application for this yarn which is only slightly less scratchy than a brillo pad.

2 days later, improvising the basic shape of the first tea cosy, here is #2 (modelled here by my infrequently-used little tea pot).

And the other side, showing the fabulously arranged gradation of colour…

Apparently it fits and looks good. We have yet to find out if it actually keeps the tea warm. Watch this space!