Battenberg Tea Cosy

My sister asked me a while ago to knit a tea cosy for her, after seeing one that she liked in Jane Brocket's fantastic The Gentle Art of Domesticity. A quick flick through my various knitting books found a perfect pattern for a 1940s style cosy in I Love Knitting and the search began to find the perfect yarn colours online.

The Rowan website provided colour charts and a decision was made. Shopping list in hand I went off to my local John Lewis. I managed to find the Calmer in one of the shades I needed, but struggled a bit with the Carnation shade. Luckily their clearance sale was on at the time and a quick rummage in one of the bargain bins produced the second ball that I required, and even better still this one was half price!

It's taken me a while to finish off the other project that was utilising my 5mm needles, but this week I was finally able to cast on the tea cosy. At the end of the first couple of rows I finally clicked as to what it was that the colours kept reminding me of - battenberg cake! I can't pretend that my baking skills are up to making my own cake, so Mr Kipling helped out with the props for this photo.