Knitted tea cosy

This is a present I made for Bradley this week. It's made from most of one skein of blue-green Cascade Yarns Quatro (100% Peruvian highland wool) yarn. I wound the skein into two balls, so that I could knit two strands together and make it quite thick. It also knits up faster that way. I also used a slightly smaller needle size than normal so that it would be quite dense, and very warm. Thanks to Alison for the cool ribbon - it was on my pouches package!

I looked online for a tea cosy pattern, and found some good inspiration, but not a specific pattern I wanted to use. Have a look at this gorgeous old cable-knit flower-decorated wool-lined tea cosy pattern! So I created my own pattern - it's barely a pattern at all because it's so simple. (As always, I'd love to see them if you make this.) Here's what you do:

Knitted tea cosy pattern
The pattern consists of two squares, which are sewn together at the sides leaving room for the handle and the spout. This way the cosy stays on the pot and you can still pour the tea. The tops of both squares have a row of holes that you thread a ribbon through (or string or braided yarn etc.) to gather it snugly at the top. So you can add the tea and water, then pull the ribbon tight and tie it to keep the tea hot. Of course this pattern can easily be adjusted to fit any teapot with handles/spout of any size and position.

1. Take some measurements of your teapot or have it handy so you can see how wide the circumference of your cosy should be, and how tall.

2. Knit a swatch with your yarn of choice to find out how many stitches to cast on. (You can do all knit or whichever stitch you like). Start knitting the first square, continue until it is as tall as your teapot up to the beginning of the lid. Add a row of holes this way: *K2, YO, K2tog*. Repeat until you run out of stitches. Knit six more rows, or whatever you like to match the height of your teapot.

3. Sew the sides together leaving gaps where the handle and spout of the teapot are.

4. Weave your ribbon through the holes. additional option: Embroider whatever you would like on the side. I used wool and embroidered the word "tea" using chain stitch.

That's it! Enjoy your hot pot of tea.

p.s. I've heard my pictures don't show up on bloglines - they show up when I log in so I'm not sure how to fix this. I'm working on it but if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate some help!