Prior - Pretty funny tea cosies: & other beautiful knitted things

A tea cosy makes a fabulous handmade gift. It is quirky, practical and no-one has to wear it. LOANI PRIOR

To Rhonda,
my beautiful sister

Contents

Yin and Yang

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Now, you might think that Mr Einsteins assertion has nothing at all to do with tea cosies, but youd be wrong. It proves that it is perfectly natural, indeed imperative, to temper our large lives with the small and ridiculous things.

Tea cosies provide the yin to our yang.

And so here we are again. Book four!

I dont feel very much like Pooh today, said Pooh.
There, there, said Piglet. Ill bring you tea and honey until you do.

A.A. MILNE, WINNIE-THE-POOH

Happy Tea Cosies

It is only a week from deadline for this knitty manuscript and today, in a serendipitously timely fashion, I received an email from Kimberly. She was afraid her heartfelt words might seem a bit weird, you changed my life creeperdoodle. What a WORD. Creeperdoodle! Can I have it, Kimberly? Make it mine? There was nothing creeperdoodle about your letter and I have other beautiful letters like it.

Like Margs. She wrote, in 2012, saying, I discovered you from the Womens Weekly article. Am recovering from a broken neck (supposed to be dead but rather be knitting!). She sent photos of herself with metal scaffolding drilled into her skull and surrounded by all the cosies shed made.

To those who write to say I have lightened your load, I have not. The truth is, you have found your own strength, your own happy place. Men inhabit their sheds or go fishing for peace of mind, and it is the nature of women to find solace in the gentle arts, on our own and alongside others, and to while away the darkness of our ill health or sadness, with our click-clacking. It is a surprisingly common story.

Well, alright, OK I LOVE that you do it in the company of my funny cosies.

I love that you love my cosies. All of you. And that you tell me. I love that too. Oh, it is just a big old tea cosy love-in, thats what it is. You make me feel very much like Pooh.

Technical Stuff

Really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage.

ELIZABETH ZIMMERMANN, KNITTING WITHOUT TEARS

Aint got nothn to add to that.

Knitting in the round

One discovered knitting in the round quite late in life and has worried over most methods, BUT there is a favourite, after all, and it has to be the Magic Loop. That is not to say that there isnt a place for using double-pointed needles or two sets of circular needles, but that is for you to sort out for yourself. They are all described beautifully in Ones previous tea cosy books and there is always that knitting gold mine, YouTube. What DID we do before the worldwide web?

The Magic Loop

(one set of circular needles)

EQUIPMENT

One set of circular needles with a long cable length 80 cm (32 in) from needle tip to needle tip will do the job nicely for a tea cosy knitted in the round using the Magic Loop.

METHOD 1

Casting on and joining the cast-on stitches

Cast on the required number of stitches, plus one. If the pattern says cast on 40 stitches, youll cast on 41. Halve the stitches (with the extra stitch on the side of the working yarn) and pull the cable out into a loop between the two centre stitches (Pic 1).

Slide all the stitches up onto the needles. Check that your cast-on stitches are not twisted. Place the last cast-on stitch onto the needle holding the first cast-on stitch (Pic 2), slide the bottom stitches down onto the flexible cable and then knit the first cast-on and the last cast-on stitches together. You are joined!

METHOD 2

The holy cast-on

Because there is no hole! And because it is heavenly.

This method is used only when you start with a small number of stitches and you want a closed hole in the middle of a circle. You need one set of circular needles.

One has never seen this method of casting on in the round before, but that doesnt mean One was first to invent it. But if One was, then One is very pleased with oneself.

Step 1 Make a circle of yarn around the first two fingers on your left hand. Place one needle in your right hand. Let the other needle dangle down. You dont need it yet. The needle in your right hand is your working needle.

Step 2 Insert your working needle into the loop, front to back and wrap the needle with your working yarn. Bring the working needle through to the front of the loop so that you now have a little loop sitting on your needle. It is still just a loop and not yet a stitch.

Step 3 To make the stitch, bring the yarn forward of the needle, pick up the little loop sitting on the needle with your left hand and bring it over the top of the yarn and off the needle.

Step 4 Draw down on the working yarn to tighten the stitch. Repeat the process until you have the required number of stitches.

Step 5 Move the stitches down onto the flexible cable of the circular needles. Halve the stitches and draw the flexible cable out into a loop at this halfway mark.