Good Morning Teacosy

Here is the pattern for the Good Morning tea cosy. I called it this as I hope that it's excess 'bright happiness' will help even the most recalcitrant breakfaster off to a good morning.

You will need:

• 4 balls of Patons Jet (new Jet 70% wool and 30% Alpaca) (ball band tension is 16st per 10cm)
• 6mm circular needle (60cm long)
• set of 6mm double point needles
• coloured wool felt and matching embroidery thread for decoration (I used Papoose wool felt from Colour of Australia in South Melbourne and DMC Cotton Perle thread in weight 5. Winterwood also have nice wool felt.)
• 30cm cotton fabric for lining and matching sewing thread

Cast on 134 stitches in the round using 6mm needles. Place a stitch marker at the start/end if you wish.

Note: the ball band suggests 5.5mm to give correct tension. I always knit items I am intending to felt a little bit looser than I would normally knit.

Knit 6 rows in garter stitch (normally on two needles this would mean knitting every row, but in the round this requires knitting the first row and purling the second row, and repeating these two rows for required amount).

Commence stocking stitch (knitting in the round means that you can knit every row to obtain stocking stitch, rather than the knit / purl alternative rows required when you knit on two needles).

Knit in stocking stitch for approximately 59 rows, or until work measures 10 inches or 25 cm from beginning (including garter stitch rows).

On the last row place a stitch marker between the 67th and 68th stitch (ie half way around).

Start top shaping:

Note: at some point during the shaping of the top the reducing number of stitches will make it too uncomfortable to continue on the circular needle and you will need to change to a set of double pointed needles.

Round 1: *slip 1, knit 1, pass slip stitch over, knit to 2 stitches before stitch marker (63 stitches in Round 1, note that this number will decrease by 2 every time this round is repeated in following rows), knit 2 together.* Repeat between * and * for the second half of the round.

Round 2: Knit

Repeat rounds 1 and 2, three times more (8 rows all together) (118 stitches remaining).

Round 9 and 10: repeat Round 1

Round 11: Knit

Repeat rounds 9 to 11, two more times (9 rows all together) (94 stitches remaining).

Round 18: repeat round 1

Repeat round 18, fourteen more times (15 rows all together) (34 stitches remaining).

Round 33: *Knit 2 together, K1* repeat between * and * to one stitch remains K1. (22 stitches).

Cast off.

To finish:

Sew together top (I used matress stitch). Weave in any loose threads.

Felt in the washing machine and dry flat.

Notes on felting:

This piece looked HUGE before I felted it!

I put my teacosy in a front loader using a normal wash cycle with normal detergent at 40 deg c. I also put the fabric for the lining in to wash and pre-shrink too. It felted perfectly in one cycle. But different yarns felt at different rates and I also know that other people recommend a hotter wash (ie 60 deg c) and/or putting more items in to help with the felting. For this project I didn't find that was necessary.

Decoration:

I used felt cut outs and appliqued them onto the teacosy using blanket stitch. I used fern stitch in the centre of the leaves. The centres of the flowers are felt balls cut in two.

You could use different or similar shapes to make your own design. There are plenty of books that offer templates, but you can also use items around the house and garden as templates. For instance, my leaves are from rose leaves.

You could also use embroidery with thick thread or yarn to decorate it.

I used a different design on the back:

Lining:

I used the cosy as the template for the lining. I traced around it onto kitchen baking paper and then added about 5mm for a seam allowance. I sewed it up using about a 75mm seam allowance (because the lining needs to be smaller). I needed to fiddle a bit to get the right fit and then I tacked it to the cosy all the way round the seam, so it fitted in snugly. I then tacked up the bottom edge hem.

If you have any questions or find any mistakes in the above pattern please email me. Much thanks.