Upping the cray-cray

It’s not often in life that you are given carte blanche to go as wild as you like. Usually it’s more of an “ask for forgiveness rather than permission” kind of thing. This means you have to steel yourself to go out on a limb and usually, the risk is too high and the ROI is too small. It is easy to either aim for the status quo or the lowest common denominator.

This was my default approach when I got a request for a tea cozy. I haven’t made one before, so I was focused on size, shape and stretch, to make sure it would work well enough to earn the label of “tea cozy.” I was happy that the end result ticked those boxes, but it was a bit boring.

Then, Nic said that a crazy tea cozy would be even better. How often does someone actually ask for you to amp up the crazy? I was excited, but also stumped. Little did I know that wacky and wild tea cozies were a bit of a thing. I didn’t want to scrap what I’d already done, but it had a sense of completeness, so I couldn’t figure out what to do next. I mulled and mused and then my sub-conscious came to the rescue. I think the process must have been something like: tea -> British -> royalty -> 3D representation -> crown!

I started to play around with my remaining yarn to get a structure that could break free from the rounds and evoke a crown without feeling too formal, stuff or stuffy. After a fair bit of trial and error, I worked out a 3D arc that gave the strength and separation I wanted. I added a partial ball to the flower on the top and voila! A coronation ready tea cozy.