Well hello there. Nice to see you on the other side. I hope you all had a good Christmas full of whatever you wished it full of.
For me I feel like I’m just waking up after a big party, feeling hungover but pretty sure I didn’t have anything to drink! Boy December was busy. I woke up Boxing Day knowing that it was my day to do whatever I wanted, my very favourite day of the year for just that reason. It’s all done. All of the running around, thinking up things, remembering what I’ve thought up, making lists (ugh). Really good leftovers in the fridge. No expectations to do anything other than settle a bit.
I successfully resisted the call of the craft this year. It’s been a tradition of mine to get very inspired by a craft very close to Christmas, and have it go a little squirrely at the end, spending too much on some exotic supply, trying to get it done, not getting it done, guilt, all that. This year I cut a few snowflakes for the windows and that was about it. Very simple. But in the lazy days after Christmas I did hear the siren call of knitting and went to look in my cupboard of unfinished knitting projects. Yes, I have a whole cupboard just for unfinished knitting projects and let’s keep moving and hopefully skip over that that’s just the unfinished knitting projects. I have more cupboards.
I dug through and found that I’d actually come very very close to finishing a project last year. A knitted, felted tea cosy. The pattern showed a cosy all rounded and quirky and fun. I had some wool I wanted to use, some gorgeous gray buffalo wool, and had got a few colours to put with it to perk it up a little. Although over the years I’ve taken on a number of knitting projects I’m more of a guerilla knitter and I figured I had this wool and two knitting needles, and a vague idea of how to do it from this pattern although I’d have to change numbers and dimensions all over the place. What could go wrong??
Well a lot went wrong, the most striking being that the cosy worked up large enough to cover my car. It was huge and heavy and very tall (all due to my fiddling, no fault of the original design) and apparently all too much for me, and there it sat, almost done, in my aforementioned cupboard.
I pulled it out and spent a few hours doing the literally last ten or so rows on it and then pulled in all the ends and laughed at how huge it was. My youngest wore it as a huge hat that hung down her back. There was talk whether we could fit a cat in it.
Yesterday I threw it as is in the washing machine — I’m a guerilla felter too — and it came out still huge, so I threw it in again. Better. It could use one more wash probably, it’s still very tall and all of the stitches are clearly visible, but it might get too tight around for a tea pot and also my tiny little attention span has moved on.
Look what I did!
Isn’t it hilarious? I crack up every time I look at it. Instead of gently rounding up to the top it has a roof. It looks like a big huge circus tent which is extremely appropriate around here. Sort of Dr. Seussian. Still available as a hat. Probably a little tight for a whole cat.
The original pattern had whimsical little spots embroidered on. Not sure if I’ll get there or not. I think for a bit this cosy is going to do the same as me, sit and settle.
