Why tea cosies?

My life is about to radically change. For the last 13 years, I have been chief taxi driver, dictated particularly by the school bell. The last five and a half even more so due to the lack of before and after school care - there is only so much you can lean on friends. Anyway, my baby is about to finish her secondary education and shortly after will (God willing!) get her licence. And, so, my life will have a whole new freedom. The past three years I have been studying an MA (the MAVP at Tabor College, Victoria), and with that finishing and my parenting role going through yet another metamorphosis, I have been looking at what I do with my time.

Now, don't get me wrong, it is not about a lack of things to do. There is always plenty. The problem is more one of motivation and energy. There are only so many repetitive tasks you can do in a day without getting seriously de-energised. At least, that's the way it seems to go with me. I realised that I need to do creative things that I both enjoy the process as well as the outcome. The tea cosy idea came out of my time studying.

I  never was a tea drinker until more recently and though I'm not sure the reason why this changed, I have got particularly into green mint or just plain peppermint tea. When I was studying, I got into the habit of sitting with my pot of green mint tea. Better for the figure than snacking, and also good for keeping the fluids up (and getting you out of your seat every half hour or so for a loo stop). However, I discovered that, even in my little one-and-a-half cup pot, the tea was getting cold too quickly, and I realised that the tea cosies my grandmother always used (no matter how hot the weather) were actually very functional. My fascination with tea cosies, though, goes a long way back, as can be seen by the photo below. This is a particularly ugly one from the 1960's, but it obviously tickled my fancy!

Anyway, in one of those rare moments, my enjoyment of knitting, the need for all my friends and family to return to the  comforting days of having tea cosies, and my need for small craft projects collided with the fact that, as is often the case,  I am not the only one realising our need to return to keeping our tea warm in pots, rather than using endless, messy teabags. If you go looking, there seem to suddenly be a number of books of patterns for tea cosies (as well as actual tea cosies), one of which, my lovely daughter gave me back in April for my birthday. Since then, I have already knitted five, although two are still in the finishing stages. The first was for my sister-in-law's birthday, and is pictured here. And the book, to give credit where due, is Tea Cozies 2, published by GMC Books.

So here I am. Now it is time for you to put the kettle on, make a cuppa or a pot and share some of your stories, thoughts or creations as I continue to share mine.