On this page:
I bought Jenny Occleshaw’s book, Tea Cosies. I thought if I could make a load of tea cosies (well), I could sell them on eBay or Etsy. I also thought making something like a tea cosy would challenge me, and take me out of my comfort zone, as they say.
The first two patterns are described as being the basis of many other cosies in the book, so I thought I’d start with one of them. The first one requires double-ended needles and is knitted-in-the-round. I didn’t have such needles and I didn’t know how to knit in the round, so I decided to make the other one, even though it would have to be sewn together. The pattern is titled blackberry-stitch tea cosy. Sadly, there are no pictures of either of these two tea cosies, but as others are based on those, I used a picture of another one as a guide. I started this in July 2014 and am still working on it now.
Materials and equipment
I had the choice of 8-ply or 12-ply yarn; I went with the 8-ply, specifically two 50g balls of James C. Brett Cotton On Double Knitting in light green. I also needed a pair of 4mm needles and a wool needle to sew the front and back pieces together and to sew all the ends in when all else is finished.
I already had darning needles I could use, and I’d bought the knitting needles and one ball of the yarn from the Sheep Shop at the last knitting class I went to there. I went back and bought another ball from the same dye lot.
Read the next instalment to see how I get on with the picot edge.
