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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Blackberry tea cosy

This is another pattern I found in a magazine - this time Patchwork and Craft- and that the friends with whom I sit and stitch every couple of weeks decided we should make together. It is by Bianca Kingham of Wolfberry Knits and called Blackberry Teacosy. Patchwork and Craft describe it as " a teacosy with knitted blackberry and leaf applique , giving the effect of embroidery". Bianca's Ravelry  page has a vest using a similar technique.
We spent one session knitting the base. This is mine - using some leftover Bendigo Woollen Mill Murano- the only roughly 10 ply wool I had to hand.  As you can see, I forgot when I started that this wool develops a slant unless you knit into the back of the stitch! I switched as soon as I remembered but decided not to undo, relying on the leaves and berries to distract from the slant.
At our next meeting, the two of us who were there decided to embroider the leaves and berries rather than knitting them. We used reverse chain stitch for the leaves and stems
and straight stitches at different angles for the berries. We could have used French Knots but found the straight stitches gave a better finish on the surface of the wool. I used only oddments of wool I had in my stash so the leaf colour is a bit limited.
This was a pretty simple project and a lot of fun to do together. It lends itself to endless variations and play.

5 comments:

Monica said...

I'm sure that pure embroidery was a much better plan than knitting each leaf and appliqueing it on. It looks really great! It must be getting colder in Australia, when everyone down under gets the urge to knit again. :D At my end, I've been wondering what I need to finish before the heat sets in!

JennyPennyPoppy said...

Love your tea cozy and what a nice project to make with friends.

Lyn Warner said...

That looks like fun to do. It reminds me of crewel work too.

Jillian said...

Yes, I have been trying to find a biggish embroidery project to get to a biggish knitting project! I agree - knitting the embellishment on the cosy was a bad idea. :-)

margaret said...

embroidering the leaves etc has worked so well