Tea Cosy I Have No Use For... gives me a sad.

I thought maybe it was time to introduce a little of my knitting. It's always for a specific someone and invariably takes three times longer to do than I expect! This piece of knitting, however, I decided to do on a whim with leftover wool when I was off sick from work.

On Ravelry I found a pattern for a Checkerboard Scarf by Kimara from Wee Folk Art. I love the texture the finished product gets, and am using it to make a scarf for my sister's boyfriend this Christmas.

This picture doesn't do the texture full justice, but it's the best I've got...

I didn't need another scarf, plus by the end of February in DC the temperature is already holding steady in the height of Irish summer range! But I had leftover batting and backing from my first quilt, so I thought - why not make something that requires quilting... All of these things came together into a strong desire to make a tea cosy for a teapot.

The Irish are a nation of tea drinkers, shown clearly in many episodes of Father Ted, so I've grown up surrounded by tea cosies (old ones; sodden and brown from many years of spills and being placed too close to the hob to keep the tea warm). I've also listened to plenty of complaints when trying to find new cosies that keep the heat in the tea. So I knew quilting techniques would definitely come in handy.

Here is the quilted sandwich, just waiting for me to wrap around the backing to create the binding. I attempted mitred corners with some help from the internet - it did not quite work out. I think because of the height of my quilt sandwich, this was a very thick batting. However, it has stopped me from trying using the backing as binding again on a quilt!




And, the final product!!

I'm very proud.

Once, I'd proudly finished the tea cosy. I realised that we don't have a teapot in our flat. But then the boxes we'd shipped over arrived and I felt sure I packed my trusty red 2 cup teapot - but NO! I didn't... I do tend to just make myself enormous mugs of tea and just drink them, but teapots are lovely to have when there's someone visiting. So lovely to sit and sip and re-pour and chat away.

I couldn't leave my on-a-whim-with-leftovers cosy to be forgotten in a corner, so I brought it back to Ireland and gave it to my parents. Renowned for their minimum of 3 pots of tea on a weekday. I thought it would be used, loved, petted each day! But, no, they declared it too good to use and no amount of declaiming this on my part would change that fact. And so it sits, in a corner, in Ireland, only rarely petted by me when I'm home. A sad end, one I hope to change someday! I think the best part about making something is seeing it used regularly. That's where true love of an object and the reward for the effort I made exists, I think...

I still loved making it! I think I'll go give it a pet now.

A :)