Standard Holiday Warning: If you are a member of my family, I love you, but if you read any further do so knowing that you will ruin Christmas.

I rather suspect it’s too much to ask for you to read two posts in a row about a stupid tea cozy, so I’ll keep this short: I figured it out. Yes, it took me four hours yesterday of ripping and reknitting and ripping and reknitting to get it right, but when I did, oh, I felt so clever I could have cried. Truly, there is nothing like knitting to make you feel smart (and sometimes also stupid, but lets leave that aside for now).

I as I mentioned, I wanted to try and use the moccasin sock technique for the top. Mostly, that’s because I wanted the tea cozy to be rounded on the ends, allowing for an easy fit over the spout and handle of my parents’ generously sized teapot. Often tea cozies are designed pretty flat (that is, the two sides could basically be knit flat and then seamed together) and while this is a tried and true method, I wanted something a little different.

Behold, the moccasin-topped tea cozy:

I love it. I kind of hated it while I was doing it (you try meticulously tinking about six ever-increasing rows stitch by stitch and see if you don’t hate it by the end), but I’m very pleased about the result. Now all it needs are its ends woven in, its side duplicate stitched (I think the beginning of the round side looks sloppy where I was simultaneously decreasing and starting/stopping the stripes), and a lining sewn. Truly, all of that seems totally doable now that I’m conquered the top.

Now, I promise there will be no more tea cosy talk until I have a proper FO shot after Christmas!