Tea cosies the second

I have, of course, made the odd traditional knitted tea cosy in the past. But they don’t keep the pot as warm as the sort that I grew up with, which don’t leave handle and spout sticking out, exposed to the elements. And as I’ve stated, keeping the pot warm while the tea is brewing is very important.

Last year I asked the obligatory “what do you want for your birthday” question of my father, and received an unusually useful answer (disclaimer: I admit to not usually giving useful answers to this question either) which was a tea cosy. The old green tea cosy that I don’t remember a time before had pretty much given up the ghost. So a replacement would be welcome.

I then spent far too long on Pinterest, and compiled a list of some lovely tea cosy ideas. Which I shamelessly copied. I’m not good at coming up with my own ideas. You can find them here if you want the original inspiration.
Because there were too many to narrow down to just one, I decided that it was an auspicious year for giving tea cosies as Christmas presents. So I knocked out a couple. Here they are:

 

When I measured the first attempt on The Boy’s teapot, it was on the tight side, so I decided I needed to insert a gusset. This resulted in him not getting his Christmas present until the new year because I also decided that my dad’s needed a gusset too. And that needed to be finished by the time I went home for Christmas, it being his October birthday present and all…

These elephants are copied from a design on an Etsy shop which had sold out last time I looked for them. The originals were far more elaborate, but I had enough of a job getting that satin stitch even to want to think about more elaborate embroidery. This is my first attempt, which I kept for myself. The lines of satin stitch aren’t as smooth (especially on the other side, haha!) as I managed to get them on the other ones.

My dad’s tea cosy is an amalgamation of two designs that I liked. The first side is simple:

The second side was a bit more fiddly:

And a close-up of the bottle-top blue tits, because I’m pretty darn pleased with them (and I realise now that the pictures aren’t as sharp as they might be!)