When Kris and I were in Hawaii, (what a strange place to think of cold-weather drinks) I came up with an idea for combining two of my loves into a cute, comfy drinking vessel that would feel cozy in your hands when filled with hot yummy drinks. I came back to discover that the concept of the knitted mug cosy had been done, and done, and done. Undaunted I determined to evolve the idea into something fresh and fun and unique, and so was born the wooly muggeths.

Some work went into figuring out the shape to throw, I settled on a mug with extruded rings at the top and bottom, to give the cosy a place to sit and keep it from sliding off. I also went through quite the adventure trying to find the perfect yarn match for each glaze. I wanted each mug to be different. This purple-blue one is paired with a skein of Stormy by Tanis – a match made in heaven!

Crocheted cosy in hand the next challenge was how to keep the mug from sliding through your grip and onto the floor – even with the ridges the cosy was sliding around. My genius friend Manda suggested sewing no-slip to the inside, worked like a charm! After test-driving the concept with dollar store no-slip drawer liners I went to Canadian Tire and invested in high quality, colour-matched no-slip. Sounds silly, I know, but it really does make a difference when you use a good colour, especially if you use a pattern where you can see through the occasional stitch (as you can on the triple crochets in this one).

For the second pair I decided to try stranded knitting for the first time – and I loved it =o) I wanted to leave a clear strip of the glaze on this piece so I purposely left the cosy an inch shy of the actual circumference.

Pair number 3 took a while to find the right yarn, but I ended up settling on a varigated yarn from Liberty that I bought on a whim at the Purple Purl. The colourway is very pretty and I thought it matched the mug well. I added clasps purchased at the KW knitters fair to finish off the look.

And how do they work you ask? They are lovely, when I filled mine up with hot chocolate the warmth seeped through the clay body and into the cosy. There are no handles and the mugs are definitely comfort-sized, so it’s a two-hander, but a warm and wooly tea cup is the perfect thing to wrap your hands around when coming in from the cold =o) These lovelies will be available at my show next month!