In between a couple of fundraising street collections with my little furry mascot, I spent most of yesterday busily finishing off bits and bobs for our ‘Lifeboatique’ stall tomorrow.
On Tuesday evening, I decided it would be a good idea to ‘whip up one final tea cosy’ for the stall - unfortunately it’s taken me about 10 hours. But I’m rather pleased with the chunksome results.
I used some red and navy aran yarn I had left over (in fact, the red yarn came from my Christmas curiousity box) and doubled-up some white 4-ply I had languishing at the bottom of my yarn stash, to fashion some RNLI-themed stripes:
I cast on 50 stitches to begin, then worked six rows of garter stitch in red to create a border, then continued in stocking stitch, working the stripes - after 26 rows, I began decreasing the first and last stitch of every other row (using k2tog). Then I simply knitted another piece exactly the same as the first and sewed them together using mattress stitch, leaving holes for the teapot’s handle and spout.
As an extra touch, I sewed 19 silver buttons to the front of the cosy in the shape of an anchor:
But it’s not just Kim and me who’ve been busy making homemade loveliness for our stall - we’ve had so many donations from other kind and clever folk. One of my favourite donations came in the post this week from my gorgeous friend Rohan - just look at these gorgeous, hand-sewn hearts!
And lovely Juliet, who works at RNLI HQ, sent an entire box of her handmade bracelets, which are just beautiful and I’m sure will go down a treat:
Rumour has it we even have a donation of homemade jam from the RNLI’s Head of Fleet Operations!
So if you’re in the area -or even if you’re not- do stop by and visit us: it’s going to be a cracking weekend and it’s all in a very good cause.
