Holiday Crafting, Part 1 - The Coffee Lover

Distant early warning: Christmas is 15 weeks away. Hanukkah is even closer. If you have visions of your friends and family opening gorgeous packages containing lovingly handmade articles this holiday season, you better get cracking.

To help you in your crafty endeavors, I am presenting what will probably be the first of many holiday gift ideas.

Voila! Christmas Coffee Cozies.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not such a devoted recycler that I am worried about the impact of those little cardboard sleeves on the environment. I like these more because they are cute and add a bit of kitsch to your morning caffeine fix.

Plus, how cute would this be filled with chocolate-covered coffee beans and a gift certificate to your favorite local coffee shop? A quick homemade gift for any caffeine-addicted college students, harried soccer mom or java snob on your shopping list. Beats a boring old Starbucks gift card.

I got the idea from poops and modified the pattern on her blog for bigger needles (I only have 8's). I wanted to practice knitting with double pointed needles before attempting my first pair of socks. I also wanted to learn to duplicate stitch. I realize that duplicate stitching is ridiculously easy, but I'd never done it before. Sheesh.

Conveniently, this is a flexible enough project that you can use it to practice any stitch technique you like.

The coffee cup is modeling the Christmas version. I used US#8 DPNs and some leftover Lion Brand Wool Ease. I cast on 36 stitches and used three rows of a K2P1 ribbing at the top and bottom to keep the edges from curling. The rest is basic stockinette stitch. There are three decrease rows (K10, K2TOG across; K9, K2TOG across; and K8, K2TOG across) spaced out roughly evenly. I think I used five rows between the decreases, which may have been a bit much as this is a pretty long cozy.

I made up my own tree pattern for the duplicate stitching. You could probably also just freehand a triangle with a stick at the bottom, but this is what I did:

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The gray cozy in the foreground was the prototype. It has curled stockinette edges and some duplicate stitch polka dots. I don't really care for the curled edge, so I definitely recommend the ribbing.

Using a very slippery pair of aluminum DPNs for my first attempt at knitting in the round, I was able to make these up in about two hours. With a little practice, you could churn these out it no time.

More holiday ideas to come. Don't blame me if you procrastinate.