What's A Tea Cozy? It's like a Prom Dress for your Teapot!

I was shocked, amazed and so pleasantly surprised today!  My friend Danelle was coming over for tea...  Danelle is my knitting friend; meaning that we both love to knit, and we are friends and have become friends over the fact that we both love to knit.  I love getting together with her for tea and knitting because it is so relaxing.  I lead a pretty hectic and busy life, and when I schedule a tea break with Danelle, it truly is a break.  We spend a couple of hours sipping Yorkshire Gold, or some other delightful English tea, dousing it with some fresh cream and honey and taking about what ever comes to mind and always with  some knitting thrown in. Well, back to what amazed me.  When Danelle arrived she had a pretty little gift bag in her hands, I was getting the tea ready, and we were visiting and she said..." oh this is for you, and you have to open it now".  I did, it was an absolutely gorgeous tea cozy, did I mention that I was shocked and amazed?  Look at the picture, it's beautiful!

It slides on over my teapot, and has two cozy layers of knitting to keep the tea piping hot.  The top is a bevy of knit roses and leaves.  It is sooo cute, I still can't believe she made it for me.  So "why?" I asked her,  and she said it was to thank me for test knitting for her, which I do, but I am about the slowest knitter in the world and quite the amateur compared to Danelle.  So why you say am I test knitting?  Well, let me just say that I have been knitting most of my life, as long as I can remember.  My mom or my Aunt Mary taught me, I don't remember which and no one out there probably cares! Danelle on the other hand, has only been knitting for a handful of years.  I am moderately ok at knitting, she is amazing at knitting and the thing about it is she really doesn't like to use a pattern, or she will start with the basic concept and then make up her own thing.  Which brings me to why I do some test knitting for her....She makes these amazing little cuffs or mitts that you can wear in the winter to spruce up your attire, or add another layer of warmth to your wrists or whatever.  They are lacy and feminine and cute and soft.  Long story short, she had perfected her pattern, and decided to try submitting it to a magazine, Jane Austen Knits to be exact, as they are the perfect Jane Austen type pattern.  Well the pattern was accepted for publication in the magazine, and last week just before mothers day, she received an email of the pattern, and also found out that she made the cover of the magazine!  Wow!  That was pretty exciting, and I am thankful for her inspiration to constantly improve and perfect my needley knitting skills and that she trusts me to give her test patterns a whirl! You can find her beautiful cuff pattern in the Summer 2012 issue of Jane Austen Knits...