Extra Emergency Knitting

The Ultimate EEK Project - My first 'Posy Cosy'

As you may have read in my previous posting, I have had a busy time just prior to Christmas ferrying a sick friend to & fro from hospital. On the upside, I have learned the very valuable lesson about making sure you having some knitting about your person at all times, as you never know when you might need that additional project for 'Extra Emergency Knitting' or EEK for short.

EEK is best when it's a small project. Preferably one with very simple instructions. Lace should be avoided as your EEK will create eek! if your concentration gets diverted, especially if you are doing 'waiting room' knitting. For my EEK I had a bag of DK scraps leftover from all my Christmas gift knits, so I set out on creating an EEK project on the fly.

I only had one set of needles, 5mm straights, what I use for the felted house slippers. Doing another pair of house slippers did cross my mind, but as I was about to cast on I had an EEK Eureka moment. I thought I would take the elements of the tea cosy I had knitted for a Christmas gift & knit something to fit our 4 cup teapot at home.

So at the GP's I started a garter stitch square using two strands of DK & the 5mm needles. Starting with just two stitches I then added an extra stitch at the beginning of each row until I had 46 stitches. Reversing the process with a series of decreases at the beginning the each row & then making a second square in a contrasting colour to match.

Now time to move from the GP's to the hospital.

Once settled into an ED cubicle I then started thinking about how to embellish this tea cosy. Then I remembered the flowers I have made for a pair or Ever After gauntlets I have made for the A&P Show. They are really simple & fast to knit.

My perfect wee posy.

Using the long tail method, Cast on 112sts in a Contrast Colour. (correctected 26/04/11)

Change colour (if desired) & for the next row - Knit

Then K2 *k1, slip this back onto LH needle & pass over the next 8 sts & then knit this st again, k2* repeat the sequence 9 more times (32 sts)

Knit 24, wrap yarn (to turn for short row) knit 24

Knit 16, wrap, turn & knit 16

Knit 8, wrap, turn & knit 8

Then break the yarn & thread it up through all the remaining stitches & tug firmly to make a flower & secure.

I managed to make three of these at ED & then finished the 4th when I needed an EEK moment escaping the boys in their post Christmas revelry.

To finish the 'EEK Cosy', I just seamed the two squares across the top & then wrapped them around my teapot & joined the side seams in correspondence with the handle & spout on my pot. Affixed the flowers into a small posy on top & 'wha la', my very own EKK 'posy cosy'.

See knitting always brings the best out of a bad situation!!