Tea Cosies

Hello, and welcome to my Cosie page!! This is a brief history of how I came to be hooked on making and selling tea cosies, along with lots of pics.


Back in 2010 I made a fancy tea cosie to be auctioned for a fundraiser at Winchester Cathedral where I work. It was quite a job designing and making it to fit the tea pot I was provided with but it looked fab when finished and sold for £65!!

Winchester Cathedral Tea CosieWinchester Cathedral Tea Cosie

At about the same time the daughter of my good friend Chris had a stall at the Art Market on the High Street once a month. This is Chris with the Baby Birds Cosie I made her -



Chris suggested that perhaps I might like to make some more and have a table on the stall to sell them. That was the start of an obsession to design and make them that lasted a good 18 months! I even persuaded family and friends to make cosies for me...

I was forever looking for ideas, patterns and wool - along with charity shop tea pots. One lady at the art market ended up not only buying 5 cosies but also started "supplying" me with tea pots to put them on!


When I finally sickened grew tired of cosies, I moved onto making all sorts of things (allsorts - fancy that!) from fabric and wool and carried on for another 18 months.
All the money I raised was donated to various charities, totalling around £3,000.

Here are some photos of just a few cosies. Many I designed myself but where I used a pattern, I've tried to include a link.


First up, a Marie Curie special from a free pattern by Loani Prior.

Marie Curie Tea Cosie


Marie Curie Tea Cosie
This Marie Curie Daffodil Cosie was made as a raffle
prize for the launch of their campaign in 2013


Alexander Meerkat Tea Cosie


This is a Meercat Coke Can Cosie, made for another friend - well she doesn't drink tea, only coke!
There was a small opening at the back of his neck for a straw so you didn't have to take the cosie off the can to drink. I did wonder how easy it was to pick up though...





This is one of my favourite cosies and one I designed myself too. A nest full of baby birds. I made different "species" of birds too. Or I said they were certain species depending on the colour of wool I had used - there were blue tits, sparrows and black birds.
Tina's Allsorts Nest of Baby Birds Tea Cosie
Tina’s Allsorts nest of baby black birds tea cosie
Tina's Allsorts baby bird egg cosie



I thought it might look quite cute to have a chick hatching out of an egg. It sort of did until you noticed the egg cup. That made it look a bit gruesome!!







Chickens were also a theme that I kept returning to. Not just tea cosies but also a paperweight and a doorstop...
Tina's Allsorts Charlie Chicken Tea Cosie

Tina's Allsorts Charlie Chicken Tea Cosie

Tina's Allsorts James the Chicken

Tina's Allsorts Chicken Paperweight

Tina's Allsorts Chicken Doorstop

Tina's Allsorts Ruben the Chicken

Tina's Allsorts Ruben the Chicken
Tina's Allsorts Nemo Tea Cosie
A friend gave me some orange wool and it seemed a shame not to use it...It took ages to design this one, never mind make it! I sold it to a couple of students who screamed when they saw it!!!

Gromit Tea Cosies
I made Gromit from a pattern by Rian Anderson  - find it HERE
Naturally, Gromit was quite popular, so I made him again. And again...

I also branched out into a handful of sheep mug cosies - my own design
Elephant Tea Cosie

Elephant Tea Cosie

I made several elephants - they all had their own name of course. Buggered if I can remember what this chap was called though...I used a pattern by Debi Birkin, available HERE. I made some minor alterations, like flowers in the grass, ridges on the trunk. Oh. and I left out her little indian boy.
Castle tea cosie

Castle tea cosie
One of the tea pots I was given, had straight side and a flat lid. I thought it might be rather fun to have a go at making a castle cosie to fit it. Then I added a drawbridge and a knight, then Rapunzle - although she didn't quite work!! It took forever...
Honeypot Cosie

Honeypot Cosie

Honeypot Cosie

This Honeypot was a made to measure affair for a 1920's style teapot in a rather nasty mustard colour. Again, this one took a long time as their was so much work involved. I was very pleased with how it turned out though.
I'd met a lady from Edinburgh Zoo who worked with the Gentoo Penguins. She'd asked if I could design and make one for her. This chap was my first go - a sort of dry run.
Gerald the Gentoo Penguin
And this is Gerald, complete with 2 chicks!
Gerald the Gentoo Penguin

The chicks turned out very cute!! 

When I first started making cosies to sell at the Art Market, I asked for help so I'd have enough. Some friends helped and a couple of the volunteers in the cafe at work. There was also a lady called Jenny, although how she heard about it escapes me. She made me 2 and this is one of them - Freddo Frog. He looks rather good doesn't he??
Freddo Frog Tea Cosie

The grassy hill with rabbits popping out was quite popular and I think between us we made 4 of these cosies. This is another Debi Birkin design.

I'd had so much fun making the first castle with it's drawbridge and knight that I made another. The teapot wasn't as nice though. And I left out Rapunzle on this one too!

But one of my absolute favourites was this beauty - I called her the Green Goddess. Although in the end I changed her name to Green Tea as she hadn't sold. I thought a change of name might help. So did reducing the price!
I'd been given the most beautiful delicate "elfin" tea pot with a pointed hat. That meant I had to have an open top and it had a pearl button fastening above the handle - without that, there's no way you'd have got it on and off. I thought she was fabulous and if I was a tea drinker I would have kept her and used her (I'm not - I absolutely HATE tea!!). And I had great fun designing her too.

Green Tea T Cosie

Green Tea T-cosie

June 2017

It's been quite a while since I made a knitted tea cosie, fun though they were. As you might have guessed from elsewhere on my blog, my current passion is crochet. I recently saw an article in Crochet Now magazine to make a tea cosie to enter into a competition as part of Marie Curie's Blooming Great Tea Party launch. And I thought I'd have a go. I've never crocheted a tea cosie before.....

I had some vague ideas and talked them over with the girls at work until I had something more concrete in my head. Here she is with the magazine article as I made a start -


(I did take some "in progress" shots but can't for the life of me find them at the moment!)

July 2017

I won the Runner Up prize!!  Woo Hoo!!! Here are some pics of my cosie, plus the winning design in the August magazine - 

Tina's Allsorts, Blooming Great Tea Cosie

Tina's Allsorts, Blooming Great Tea Cosie
Tina's Allsorts, Blooming Great Tea Cosie
Tina's Allsorts, Blooming Great Tea Cosie

I'm really not surprised I didn't win - and I never actually expected to - just look at the winning entry!! Absolutely amazing!!! The mag editor said they're going to run a CAL on their blog, so go and have a look if you want to make your own.

11 comments:

  1. I can tell you were having fun making all of these different cosies! I have a soft spot for the sheep mug cosies! The other designs are such fun too!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can see what you mean about 'obsession'! Really fabulous creations. A brilliant collection of tea cosies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you. I'm obsessed with other things now...

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just love the birds nest tea cosy, I'll give it a go.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thankyou!! I'd love to see a photo when you've made it! One day I will sit down and properly write up the pattern...

      Delete
  5. These are all so absolutely brilliant. I’ve been looking for a tea cosy with a church and vicar on for a while now. My youngest child is about to leave his C of E primary school this September and I wanted to make them a tea cost for the staff room as a leaving present. Do you have a link for your pattern please? I’d love to make your design for them :o)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Mrs C,
    Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment - and I'm REALLY SORRY for my incredibly late reply!! Blogger decided to stop notifying me about comments and as I don't get many, I hadn't checked for any for a long time....
    You will have sorted yourself out by now I know but I just wanted to mention that I never actually wrote up the patterns for my own designs, and most of the others were paid for patterns, so I would only be able to give you a link.
    I would recommend Ravelry as being a good place to look for patterns though.

    Best wishes
    Tina x

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  8. please I would love a Red Robin tea cosy please

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello! Can I order a gromit tea cosy to ship to Italy?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Aby,
      I'm sorry but I don't take commissions anymore.
      Perhaps you have a friend who likes knitting who could make it for you?
      I used this pattern from Ravelry and added a plain lining -
      https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/dog-tea-cosy

      Hope that helps?
      Best wishes
      Tina

      Delete