Odessa’s Three Colourwork Cup Cosies

While trawling Ravelry this afternoon, I came across these beautiful cup cosies, the free pattern created by Odessa Reichel.  My does she have some amazing designs!

Odessa has written a really neat guide to knitting from charts on her blog, included in which are these cute free cup cosy patterns.

This is a great pattern if you are new to introducing colour into knitting, and knitting from charts – the instructions are really well written.

And who couldn’t resist making one of these? Obviously fabulous for keeping  tea warm, but if you’re partial to a nice chilled frappe or an iced tea, they can help prevent hand freeze too!

On the tea front, this week I’ve been mostly drinking Cosy Organic Earl Grey.  It’s a light tea with plenty of flavour, perfect with cake for those sluggish afternoons where you need a pick me up (without hitting the ceiling).

What’s in your cup?

Lisa’s Lidded Tea Cosy

Happy Friday again everyone, I hope you all had a great Easter weekend! We have been busy here at Cosy Tea HQ recently, there seems to be a big demand for tea at the moment! Maybe it’s something to do with the sun coming out, a nice refreshing tea can be so much more uplifting than a milky coffee when it feels a bit warmer outside.

How is your knitting coming along? If you haven’t noticed we now have a ‘Readers’ Cosies‘ page – please send us your photos if you would like to be featured!

This week we would like to share a knitting pattern by Lisa Stockebrand - the Lidded Tea Cosy.  This cosy is knit in the round on two circular needles for the most part, and a gusset is created for the spout.  To finish off, the tea cosy is lightly felted to ensure a snug fit for a 4 cup teapot!

You can find the PDF for the pattern on Lisa’s website, along with some other free patterns she is offering as downloads.

Emma’s Blighty Jubilee Tea Cosy and Egg Cosy

We’ve been busy busy here at Cosy Tea HQ recently – I apologise for lack of posts and communication! I had a couple of days off in sunny Brighton this week and came back to find a link to these fab free tea cosy and egg cosy patterns in my inbox, thank you Emma Varnam!

Both cosies are knitted in 100% Millamia Extra Fine Merino (for super tea and egg cosiness) on 4mm (US 6) double pointed needles.   They are worked in a cute stripe pattern in the round.

Emma created these two patterns in celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee, but suggests they would be equally suitable for the 4th July!

I love this egg cosy, it’s like a little hat with its pom pom on top

Look no further for an excuse to throw a street party! You can find the pattern on Emma’s website for free.

In case you haven’t spotted it, we now have a ‘Readers’ Cosies‘ page – if you have made any of the tea cosies we have featured, then please send us photos so we can include you!

Have a lovely weekend

A Cosy fit for an Avanti Tea Pot

Hello and happy Friday – again! This week I would like to share with everyone  a slightly different tea cosy  knitting pattern- for an Avanti teapot, which is longer and less spherical than most teapots.

This pretty  tea cosy was designed by Kristy Harrison in Australia, and the pattern is available for free Kristy has gone for a country feel with this tea cosy, using a chunky yarn and tweedy flowers and leaves to finish off.

To make the tea cosy, you will need approx 60g of 12 ply yarn and some small amounts of tweed in contrasting colours for the embellishments.  The gauge is 16.5/10cm in stocking stitch on 6mm knitting needles.

This Avanti tea cosy is knitted in a simple cable stitch, and it can be completed within a few hours in this chunky yarn.  The cables add thickness to the cosy, making it super warm!

This pattern can be found on Kristy’s website, along with some more lovely free knitting patterns for hot water bottle covers and a hat !

 

I-Cord Cup Cosy

I love this cup cosy! This has got to be one of the easiest cosies we have featured so far, as it’s made out of i-cord!

If you don’t know what i-cord is, there are a couple of ways to make it.  The knitters’ way, using a pair of double pointed needles to go round and round in a very tiny circle, as described very well in this tutorial by The Purl Bee.  Or you could use the childs way – I say this as when I was young I used to make yards of this stuff on my Knitting Nancy (mine was prettier than this one).  I found this great tutorial on how to make and use a really lovely wooden one on MamaMoontime’s blog  This will keep the kids entertained for a while!

This cup cosy was designed by Marina in Moscow by accident, when she realised that she could use up all the i-cord she had lying around by making her Grandma a birthday present.   Note – you need a cup like the one in the picture for this to work! The handle needs to be at the top.  (This mug is from Ikea)

So the first thing to do is create yourself tons of cord.  Then get yourself over to Marina’s post on Instructables, which will talk you through the rest of the steps needed to create your cup cosy!

You can find more of Marina’s designs and ideas on the Instructables website, including the Enormous Stripy Knitted Snake featured on Ravelry!

The Mr Puffy Tea Cosy!

Happy Friday everyone! This whole week has disappeared somewhere, and it’s starting (just starting) to feel a bit like spring! Ok so today is a little cloudy, but yesterday the birds were singing well after 5pm and for the first time in ages I didn’t have to wear fingerless mittens when I was knitting outside on my lunchbreak.  Hurrah!

Claudia's 'Mr Puffy Tea Cosy'

The free knitting pattern I want to share with you this week is the Mr Puffy Tea Cosy by Claudia. She has a sweet story on her blog about how the tea cosy came about, and how it is named after her beagle who passed away in 2010. I think Mr Puffy is a great name for a little dog

This pattern is a simple and quick one to knit up, using a bramble stitch that is explained in the pattern, which can be found for free on Claudia’s blog.

Time for Tea!

The tricky part of the pattern that some people may not recognise, is the double increase stitch – kpk. Basically you knit into the front of the stitch, then the back, and the front again to make one stitch into three. This is then followed with a p3tog which then puts your stitch count back to the correct amount of stitches.  Once you have the hang of that then you’ll have yourself a new tea cosy in no time!

A lovely set of colourful tea cosies!

This tea cosy is made on 5mm (US8) needles, with two contrasting coloured aran or worsted weight yarns, and the flower on 3.5mm (US4) with scrap yarn. After it’s blocked then the dimensions should be 8″ x 6″, which should be plenty big enough to fit around most 3 cup tea pots.

Claudia also has a free knitting pattern available for a rather lovely handspun scarf, so make sure you take look at her ravelry designs page!

Time for Tea!

Today I thought I’d give my new favourite tea – Jasmine Green, it’s own little post.   Green tea, as I’m sure you are aware, is super good for you.  Research shows it is not only helpful for cancer, infection, high cholesterol and cardiovascular diseases, it is also soothing to rheumatoid arthritis too.

Jasmine Green Cosy Tea

Using organic Chunmee (eyebrow) tea and jasmine essential oils, our teas come conveniently packed into a little unbleached bag for perfect ease of tea making!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like this tea as it feels nicely cleansing on the pallet, it’s quite light and delicate, yet still bursting with jasmine flavour, yum! It’s also quite soothing on a sore throat, and because it contains caffeine, it’s a more gentle (and healthy) way to wake up than that daily latte (or two).

Our friends below have been reviewing our teas and are doing a few give-aways! So if you’d like to try some, you know where to look

Spodzblogz.co.uk
goriamifamily.blogspot.com
bambinosandbumps.blogspot.com
mummyof3diaries.blogspot.com
alwaysbeafriend.com
rhodareviews.blogspot.com