The fight against cold tea continues…

Not content with merely keeping tea warm while in the pot, my obsession with cosies recently transferred to the very cup itself. I didn’t have long to whip up a gift for Ruthie’s birthday so I thought a small but perfectly formed mug cosy would be just the ticket. I’d seen a few mug cosy patterns knocking around, but none of them were quite right so I grabbed some Patons Shadow Tweed from my stash (left over from making these Christmas socks for my brother last year), cast on 12 sts on 5mm needles and fashioned a mug cosy using Irish moss stitch.

All I did was knit a rectangle big enough, cast off then picked up 6 sts at one end, leaving 2 sts at the top and 4 sts at the bottom, then knitted these 6 sts in moss stitch, including 3 buttonholes. Then I did a very poor version of button hole stitch around the button holes in a deep red embroidery thread…

and chose some matching buttons from my button tin…

et voilà!

(As a footnote, I pressed Ruth to tell me whether or not the cosy is actually useful and unfortunately, as I had kind of predicted, she reports that when you attempt to drink the tea, it dribbles down the side of the cup and makes the cosy soggy. But at least it stays hot!)