Blackberry-stitch tea cosy: handle and spout openings

This is the fifth instalment of the tale of my blackberry stitch tea cosy. Read from the beginning.

Making up the tea cosy

I had to sew up from the top a little way down the tea cosy. My sewing isn’t great, so this didn’t look as pretty as I’d like it to be. Nevertheless, it is staying put. It seems there’s going to be a hole in the top for the knob of the teapot lid, so that’s handy. If it turns out to be a problem, I can always stick something decorative on the top to hide it.

Picking up and knitting stitches along the sides

The tea cosy has extra knitted bits down the sides where the teapot handle and the spout stick out. These are knitted sideways on to the rest of the tea cosy. The instructions tell me to pick up and knit 55 stitches along each side. I have no idea how to do this. I tried picking up some stitches from along the side, but I couldn’t find 55 and they weren’t close enough to each other. I unravelled it and looked to the internet for guidance.

How to pick up and knit stitches along the side

The lady in the following video understands where beginners like me can go wrong when told by the pattern only pick up and knit a number of stitches. I had gone wrong exactly like she said. She goes on to explain what is meant by picking up and knitting stitches and how to do it. I attempted to follow her instructions.

uploaded by Nancy Wynn

My efforts at picking up and knitting along the side

Having paid careful attention to what the nice lady was telling me and showing me, I looked at the edges of my tea cosy. The knitting she was using as the base was a lovely neat stocking stitch. Mine is an uneven blackberry stitch. It’s actually very difficult to see where the “driving lane”, as she calls it, is, never mind where each stitch is. Still, I persevered.

I was supposed to pick up and knit 55 stitches. That didn’t happen: I found only 34 stitches, and they were haphazard at best. In the picture of the similar tea cosy, I could count around 30 stitches; I think I did quite well.

Knitting the handle and spout openings

handle/spout opening
handle/spout opening

The picked up stitches are the base upon which to knit the handle and spout openings are knitted.

I’m not sure what happened, but in the middle, I had two loops on the needle in one stitch. I thought I fixed it, but there’s now a tiny hole in it. I don’t think it’s very noticeable. I’m quite pleased with it, especially considering how difficult the picking up was.

I need to do four of these so that there is one on the back and front of each of the left and right. One down, three to go.

Read the next instalment to see if I manage to complete the tea cosy.

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