Tea Cozy

For me, tea from a teapot is a given:

1- who can ever only drink one cup?

2- it allows for a social sharing of the tea, many important conversations happen over tea

3- it gets more mileage out of a teabag

4- it allows the milk to be put in the cup first, providing a utensil-less stirring as the tea is poured in

5- it allows for mixing of different tea bags, developing new flavours

The problem is that even in the warmest of houses, a teapot left to steep but forgotten, cools very quickly. And so, of course, every teapot is at a loss before it has come to find a well-fitting tea cozy. Especially if said tea cozy does not need to be removed prior to pouring.

Over the years, I have knitted and crocheted several cozies for my teapots, but this one is one of my favourites. It took little yarn and fits comfortably on most average sized teapots.

On the right is a version that my friend made using the same pattern but combining two colours. The pattern takes about an average ball and a half (75g) of wool. This cozy fits most comfortably on little 3-cup teapots, but on hers you could probably fit a larger teapot by letting the drawstrings go loose.

This knitted pattern, from "Gifted: Lovely Little Things to Knit + Crochet" by Mags Kandis, is a fairly straight forward knit on the round. It is a quick project for a beginner to intermediate knitter. The language of patterns is not as scary as it looks and there are many good websites, only a google search away, that will explain what each of the code words mean. Not only that, but the book (like many knitting books), in fact, has a glossary of terms in the end. The book also has lots of little crafts that make good gifts.