After purchasing a gorgeous large yellow tea pot my friend really wanted a cosy for it so enter me!
Firstly, I took her all of my wool and she picked five beautiful colours... and look at her amazing tea pot! Lots of cuppas in that me thinks...
We then talked about the style of cosy she wanted and I showed her a lovely style of crochet called the Catherine Wheel stitch which I had found in Erika Knight's book 'Crochet Workshop' and I thought would look great hugging her tea pot.
So, all was in place, now to start.
I've never made a tea pot cosy before so the following was created as I went along. Please forgive (and point out!) any glaring gaps or errors you may find.
I used a 4mm hook and the wool was Rico Design Creative Cotton Aran.
To start make ch40 plus 7 for the foundation chain. If your tea pot is smaller or larger you need to have a foundation chain which is a multiple of 10 plus 7 extra in order to make the Catherine Wheel design.
Then to make the Catherine Wheel stitch. Not sure where I stand with repeating this so to find the stitch look at Erika's book page 55.
The stitch begins by looking like half a wheel. It forms full wheels as it grows..
Then I changed colour for each wheel, so it worked out as 2 rows in each colour. I love the way the colours just burst at you...
Including the foundation chain I continued for 18 rows until it reached up to the handle of the tea pot.
Then the fun began as I needed to make the crochet narrower at the top to fit the tea pot lid and also consider how it would attach and come on and off.
So on the next row I only completed the whole wheels and did a slip stitch between the wheels in order to tighten the work.
This is how one side looked. You need to make two!
Then I sewed in the ends and sewed together the bottom of the two sides to sit under the spout and again at the top of the two sides to sit above the spout. I also sewed up the top of the other side between the handle and the tea pot lid.
As you can see in the picture there was a slight gaping around the tea pot lid. I overcame this by crocheting two rows of double crochet around the top skipping stitches in order to tighten it and give a lovely snug fit to the tea pot lid without leaving any gaps.
Calamity hit after this though!
The cosy fit beautifully around the tea pot lid and whilst making it and measuring it against the tea pot it was measuring up to be a beautiful fit around the pot...but no! Once I had sewn it together at the tops I had not taken into account the fact that this would pull it tighter and therefore wouldn't then fit all the way around the pot.
Look - what a disaster!
After a discussion with my friend and me being more than prepared to remake the cosy, she pointed out the possibility of a buttoned attachment to match the Catherine Wheel stitch with a feel of the back of a duffel coat.
So the connector was made by doing -
4ch, 13 tr into 4th ch from hook, ss to join
then 25ch, ss to 12th ch from hook this makes the button loop
dc in all ch until you reach the wheel shape, then dc around the wheel and back along to the button loop, 14 dc into loop ch sp, ss to first dc, fasten off
It should look like this.
I then attached it to the back of the tea pot cosy by sewing one end on with a button on top to secure it and balance out the design, and then the other end was left loose but a matching button was sewn onto the cosy itself.
A bodge that works I think! My friend was super impressed and actually I really liked the unusualness of the finished design.
I took the tea pot and cosy to the Ladies night I attended and had so much interest in it.
The moral of the story for me was that even when my designs don't turn out as I hoped they can still be rescued. I had never made a tea pot cosy before and I had lots of difficulty finding a pattern, hence having to create my own as I went, as tea pots come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. But, I loved doing this and being creative with it.
And more to the point, my friend was pleased. Yay!! :)
