When you move abroad you know there will be some surprises. Things like needing to buy ceiling lights and find an electrician for our rented apartment (if you are from Germany just know that American apartments don’t come with wires hanging from the ceiling – there are lights installed already) are the more stressful unexpected things. And you plan on exploring local restaurants and tasting new foods. These are both exampes of the “expected” unexpected – you know there will be some bumps in relocating as you discover differences in what’s “normal” and new food and cultural experiences are part of why the pain of relocating is worth it.
But there are also completely unexpected surprises. One challenge that led to such a surprise was how to make coffee. There’s the obvious answer – go buy the German equivalent of a cheap Mr Coffee drip pot. But we really love our coffee. The word “snob” wouldn’t be completely out of place, except that I won’t tell you how you should enjoy your coffee. Yet the frugal part of me rebelled at dropping serious money on a coffee maker we’ll have for less than 3yrs and can’t take back with us (differents plugs & voltage). So we bought a hand pour with reusable filter and a stove top hand pour kettle instead from the Coffee Gator. If you haven’t heard of hand pour coffee before, its basically manual drip coffee. Sure, it takes our coffee snobbery to a new level, but it wasn’t much expensive than a cheap drip coffee maker and we can take it back with us. We can also make darned good coffee with it.
However, it’s glass and uninsulated. So I found myself making something that is so very not my usual style – a cozy. For our coffee pot. I’m a sweater, shawl, sock, wearable items kinda gal. Cozies just aren’t on my usual project list. Who knew going abroad would mean not just new yarns and fibers to play with but also exploring new catagories of things to make?
Luckily, as you may remember, I brought a little stash with me. TheEnabler and I dug in and picked out a handspun I’d made a couple years ago that was just waiting for a project. It was one of my favorites and part of the smaller set of yarns that didn’t have a project but I just couldn’t leave home… It’s a 2ply from wool/bamboo/silk fiber from Hobbledehoy.
Because of the color varigation, I chose to stick with mostly stockinette to let the colors show through. I looked around a bit at patterns, but then decided to just wing it.
I started by crocheting a circle for the bottom. When it was as big as the bottom, I picked up stiches around and started stockinette in the round. I measured my gauge and increased (then decreased) periodically to match the changing circumference of the coffee pot. When I reached the handle, I changed to knitting back and forth.
I knew I’d want to “button” up the cozy above the handle, so I also picked up my crochet hook to create button loops of crochet chains at the bottom, middle and top of the opening. I did a bit of rib on either side of the opening and for the top couple inches.
For “buttons”, I pulled out my lucet (I knew there was a reason I brought it), created three lengths of cord from the yarn and then knotted the cord into buttons.
Voila! Coffee Cozy 🙂
I love it, and I know TheEnabler loves it because he actually beat me to sending out photos to people back home. It’s just a lovely bit of cheer to look at pre-caffeine in the morning.