Cute Knitted Tea Cosy with Crochet Flowers - pattern and tutorial

It was my darling partner, the chef and man-of-the-house, who suggested making tea cosies for the Encraftment market. As a confirmed coffee - all be it decaf - drinker, I had not considered this particular choice of vintage inspired domesticity. Making it has brought back memories of childhood visits to my grandparents house, polite cups of tea and the neat exactness and order of my grandparents house. My grandmother was a champion of all things crafty. Over the course of her life she has knitted and stitched literally thousands of jerseys, garments and toys. Her knitting machine always parked in the sun room; always a project on the go or a new pattern to try. In a rest home now, she has given up on knitting. Much of craft equipment has been passed to me, and when we visit I take in my projects to show her. She's always happy to see the skills passed to a new generation.

I almost always use the single needle, long tail, method of casting on. It's really easy once you get the hang of it! So I made you a tutorial:

Casting-on using the single knitting needle method:

Make a loop and put it onto the knitting needle.
Leave at least a metre of yarn as a tail.

This loop forms the first stitch.

Hold the 'tail' yarn in your left hand fingers making a thumbs up.
Wrap the wool around your thumb in a clock-wise direction.

Insert the needle in between the wool and your thumb. A bit like you're using your thumb as the other knitting needle.

With your right hand wrap the ball end of the yarn around the needle. The yarn should start at the back of the work and wrap anti-clockwise.

Now use your thumb to lift the loop over the needle to form the stitch.

This picture shows the needle with 3 stitches already completed.

Gently pull both pieces of wool to tighten the stitch.

This picture shows the 5th stitch being made.

Just keep adding stitches until you have the required number. If you run out of tail yarn I'm afraid you will have to start again with a longer length!






Square Patterned Tea Cosy with Crochet Flowers

Where brackets, [ and ], appear in the instructions they are given to identify the instructions that are to be repeated.
These cast on instructions are for right handed knitters. For left handers mirror the instructions to the opposite hands.

Using 5mm knitting needles and 8ply yarn, cast on 84 stitches. 

Work 5 rows of knit 1, purl 1 rib. 

Next section:
Row 1: Purl 1, Knit 4 stitches, purl 1, then [knit 4, purl 1] 7 times. Cast off 2 stitches, purl 1 [knit 4, purl 1] 8 times.
Row 2: turn and work on the first set of 41 stitches; knit 1, purl 4, knit 1, [purl 4, knit 1] 7 times, turn.
Row 3: Purl 1, knit 4, purl 1, [knit 4, purl 1] 5 times, knit 5, turn.
Repeat the pattern for another 2 rows.
Row 6: knit all stitches to give the purl row stripe as shown.

Repeat this pattern 3 more times - four strips in total. The picture above shows the first three stripes.

Break the yarn and rejoin onto the second half of the stitches. 
Work as for the first half until the two sides match.

Next section:
With the right side facing: work 40 stitches as per the established pattern, knit 2 stitches together, work the remaining 40 stitches. 
Work a further 6 rows as per the pattern.

Top shaping section:
Row 1: Knit row: purl 1 [knit 2 together twice, purl 1] until the end of the row.
Row 2: Knit 1 [purl 2 together, knit 1] until end of row.
Row 3: purl 1, knit 1, repeat until end of row.
Row 4: Knit 1, [purl 2 together] repeat until end of row.
Row 5: Knit 2 together, repeat until end of row.

Continue decreasing by knitting or purling the stitches together until only 5 remain. Break the yarn, leaving enough to sew up, and use a crochet hook to pull the yarn through the remaining 5 stitches to secure. 

One tea cosy, ready to sew up.

Five stripes and a decrease section at the top.

Start the sewing up at the bottom of the open end. Sew the rib section only up using a mattress stitch. Secure the bottom of the opening with a couple of repeated stitches and sew in the ends of the wool.

Now sew from the top down, again using a mattress stitch. Sew down two strips, so both openings match. Reinforce with top of the opening with another couple of stitches, then work in the end.

The cosy can be decorated with any combination or number of crochet flowers. 
I worked two flowers: starting with a magic loop, I worked double crochet stitches for the first row, then changed colours and worked 1 double crochet stitch into the first hole, then 3 double crochet into the next hole. I repeated this right around the centre to form the petals. Instead of sewing in the loose threads, I knotted off three and left them hanging down. I used the fourth thread to sew the flower to the cosy.

The decoration stage is time to go nuts with whatever design takes your fancy. Happy crafting xx  

Pretty Little Cardy

Nothing looks prettier than a little girl in a hand knitted cardigan. All smiles and blooming optimism. Hand knits always speak of care and attention, time spent in crafting something special for a treasured child.

This one uses colour and a relatively simple pattern to excellent affect. It was quick to knit with no shaping in the armhole or sleeve. I have used a New Zealand Merino and Cashmere blend made in NZ by Zealana.

Despite this being a New Zealand made yarn, it seems to have few stockist in NZ. I found it at Knit World Studio in Cuba Street, Wellington when we went on holiday recently. Not stocked in Christchurch unfortunately, but the website lists lots of US and UK  stockist.



The pattern is by Touch Yarns: 'Child's Patchwork Cardigan', design number TY0601. Touch is another excellent New Zealand yarn company that manufactures in NZ from New Zealand wool.

The pattern calls for five colours. In typical spare of the moment stash gathering fashion, I only bought four colours: Pale Jade, Kowhai, Rose Petal and Milford Fiord. At $14 a ball, this is no cheap cardy; so instead of buying another colour I decided to be a little creative with their distribution. Thus proving you don't have to stick to the pattern colour guides to achieve a great result. 

The colour join as seen on the wrong side
 of the work
 

To join the colours on the back be sure to wrap the second colour around the first at the join. Otherwise you will end up with two separate pieces of knitting.






I knitted the sleeves at the same time, as I find it saves time on measuring later. Because of all the stripe colour changes and working from both ends of the balls to avoid having to ravel off and break the yarn, this turned into a spaghetti nightmare. It was worth it in the end, however it made this part of the project hard to work on over coffee and cake in my favourite cafes.

As you can see I ran out of pink before the sleeves were finished! Oh well ....  unique customisation.





Sewing the shoulder seams together usig mattress stitch.












The neck all ready to have the band cast on.












Knitting the neck band.















Sewing the sleeve on. Pinning it with safety pins makes it easier to sew with no sharp pins to work around.









I decided to depart from the pattern and make a couple of crocheted flowers to decorate the front.

Large Flower
Work 6 chain st. then join into a loop.
1st row: work 1 chain, then 12 stitches double crochet through the centre; join to the beginning stitch.
2nd row: work 1 chain, then 2 double crochet into each stitch. Join to beginning stitch.
3rd row: work 8 chain and join into the circle at 3rd stitch. Repeat 8 times.


Small Flower
Work 4 chain st. then join into a loop.
1st row: work 1 chain, then 8 stitches double crochet through the centre, join to the beginning stitch.
2nd row: work 1 chain, then 2 double crochet into each stitch. Join to beginning stitch.
3rd row: work 6 chain and join into the circle at 2nd stitch. Repeat 8 times.

 

 I also made this butterfly by crocheting a chain, then filling it in with double crochet.
Sewing it onto the cardy keeps its shape.










Little Miss 3 said she wanted butterfly buttons. Luckily I managed to find the right size and colour, so she was thrilled with her new cardy! Happy little girl!