What I made, by Sharon

 I bought a kg of "wool" last time I was at Bendigo Woollen Mills. After If finished my last project, I decided to do a sample spin. I made fauxlags and using longdraw spun up 50 grams. I plied it on Monday night, and got about a ten ply - 78 metres for 50 grams. Meanwhile - Leon and I drink a lot of tea, both black and herbal. We have a lovely, traditional tea pot with a very nice cosy. For a while we've been discussing the problem of washing the pot - we don't want out black tea with breakfast to taste of last night's camomile, yet it does. I have a glass tea maker, and we've been using that for herbal tea, which solves the problem of cross flavouring. But it didn't have a cosy, which means the tea gets cold.  You can see where this is going, right? Beautiful handspun tea cosy. I used this pattern , but flipped it around, because my tea maker has an insulated lid, but looses heat through the bottom. Or it did - now the bottom is covered! I'm so happ...

I finished Kathy's tea cosy and blocked it and was going to post about it yesterday, but the day got away from me. We took the day off work to celebrate the all the scaffolding on our side of the building being down, so I thought I would have loads of time, but the day was somehow really busy, what with sleeping in and running and going down the street to pick up a beer, cheese and wine tasting.  The tea cosy went pretty quickl y,  once I final ly got the hang of the pattern. I finished it, and very carefully sewed up the top and bottom. I put it over one of my smaller tea pots to block, but I was quite worried. Kathy's tea pot has an odd shape: And the bottom of this was tight, so I was worried that it might fit but not stretch to get on. Eventually I pulled out the bottom seam and put a button on, so she can undo it to get it on. Knitting something to fit from pictures and dubious measurements is a little tricky, but I can adjust it when we go to see them, which w...

When I finish something, I put it to the left of the computer that I sit at to blog. Then I (at some point) photograph it, blog about it, update my Ravelry and off they go. I also occasionally use the spot as a holding zone for other things. The other day I received some leggings and had to return them for sizing issues. I put them on the pile, organised the return, put them in the envelope and sent them off. The only thing is that now I can't find one of the socks I JUST finished. They were on the pile, and the only thing I can think of is that I put them with the return. So, here's a single sock: Flores, by Joji, in a yarn I dyed myself. I've emailed the company, so hopefully they will find the sock with the return. The other item isn't actually quite finished. I made a tea cosy for Elise's tea pot, but I'm doing an afterthought spout hole. I say Elise for a few minutes the other day, but she forgot to bring the pot. So it's not technically finished...

Recently Katie put a question on Instagram about growing her own ginger, because she was spending a house deposit on fresh ginger, for fresh ginger tea. I got inspired, and used some of the ginger I had received in my weekly grocery box for ginger tea. Delicious. So I ordered a kilo of fresh ginger. I gave half of the kilogram to Katie, and put a third of the remaining lot in whisky, to preserve it - also so at the end I'll have ginger that tastes like whisky, and whisky that tastes like ginger. The ginger was making our tea pot taste like ginger, and it was almost impossible to clean out between uses. I love ginger, but probably don't need everything to taste of it all the time.. I also realised that our cafietiere would be better, because it has a filter, and our tea pot doesn't. BUT the cafetiere didn't have a cosy, and this tea needs to steep. So I crocheted one! I haven't picked up the hook since July last year, and it's always fun to get bac...

We're coming to the end of my Kate Davies fest, and I finally made time to finish the tea cosy I started at the beginning of it. I made it my using charts E and F from the Sheep Heid pattern, using fewer stitches and making it up as I went along when necessary. I'm pleased with how it came out: I also like the way it looks next to out full size tea pot: As Leon summed it up "it's so cuuute". And it really is. 

During my time off I have been crocheting a tea cosy for my mother in law. She requested one, and I'm always happy to oblige people who I know are going to use and appreciate the gifts I make for them. The first Christmas Leon and I were together I made her a tea cosy, and she has used it every single day, and it has become quite stained. I used light colours on that one, so on this one I used colours that really shouldn't show drips and spills. She recently cleared out all her knitting stuff, having given it up quite some time ago.The pattern came from a knitting book she gave me, which looks like it was from the early 60s. It was quite fun to crotchet a project for a change, especially at the end, when there is no casting off. You do the last stitch and that's it.