Viking Coffee Cozy

I’m so excited to share the results of my coffee cozy adventures, but first, a quick peek at some finished fabrics from my rigid-heddle loom.

Here is the polyester permanent-pleat fabric off the loom, before tying and pleating.  I like it so much in the flat form that for a second I thought about not pleating it, but that’d be crazy, considering how much work it was to put in the supplemental weft shots.

Polyester pleats
This next piece is the Curious Creek yarn woven up into 2-1/2 yards of lovely squishable fabric.  It’s destined to become a garment of some kind.  As to what, exactly, I haven’t decided; I’m still talking to it.  I meant to blog this in progress, but it was just too fun to weave, and before I blinked, there was the end of the warp coming off the back beam.

Eric’s birthday was a quietly festive affair.  There was a sunburst cake, made up of slices of a bunch of different flavored cakes from our local deli.  And there were gifts.  One of which was the practical, yet stylish “Viking Coffee Cozy.”

Vikirg Coffee Cozy

It is designed to fit over my husband’s french press coffee maker to keep his coffee warm as he works in the wee hours of the morning on his latest novel.

This is my second-ever knit design and I’m tickled with it.  Designing is even more fun than knitting!  My first attempt to create the cozy, I used 2×2 ribbing all the way up, but didn’t like how it interacted with the spout.  So I (to my husband’s astonished gasp of horror) ripped the three-quarters-completed cosy back into a ball of yarn.  It was actually sweet to see Eric looking mournful about the loss of my knitting progress.  “I can rebuild it,” I assured him.  “Better, stronger, faster.”

While I’d been knitting and struggling with the first version, I got the inspiration to use cables to flow around the spout.  Heat rises, so I continued the coffee cozy over the top of the press.  But I also wanted him to be able to put the cozy on when he poured in the  the hot water but not have to take the cozy off to press the coffee.

front of cozy

The body is knit up in heathered bulky grey wool (grey is my husband’s favorite color) and took about a day.  A caribou antler button from a family trip to Alaska completes this manly cozy.  (I recall thinking at the time, “What the heck am I going to do with one caribou button?  I’m glad I listened to my intuition and bought it anyway.)

back of coffee cozy

Stash diving provided all the materials, ingenuity the pattern.

I felt very artsy and thrifty giving this to Eric.  Those of you who know him, will recognize that this coffee press is perfectly suited to his aesthetic.  In fact, the cozy matches a hat I knit for him out of handspun that soon became a staple of his wardrobe. (Really, it’s his go-to wooby hat, but if I said that I’d get in sooo much trouble.)

When he’s working at his desk and wearing his handspun hat, he and his coffee cozy look like two vikings waging a war against the blank page.

I love how the coffee press now looks like it’s wearing a chain mail hood.  Very fierce!

P.S. I’ve already had one person inquiring about where to get the pattern.  Here’s what I’m thinking, I’d like to offer the pattern for sale as a downloadable PDF for $3.99.  If you are interested in purchasing it for that price, send me an email or leave a comment here.  If five or more people express interest, I’ll whip up something pretty in InDesign, get it test-knit, and put it for sale in the shop.

1 thought on “Viking Coffee Cozy

  1. I love your coffee cozy and would love to purchase the pattern, or even have you make it for me. I couldn’t find your ‘shop’ to see if you had it up for sale. If you could sell me the pattern or the cozy, that would be great!

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