Sweater = Baby Cozy

What makes a cozy a cozy?

Wiktionary gives the definition as "a padded or knit covering put on a teapot for keeping the tea warm." But tea pots don't have the corner on cozies anymore. A quick google search gives me patterns for cell phone cozies, tissue cozies, egg cozies, beer bottle cozies, toilet paper roll cozies, and so many other cozies that the word "cozies" starts to look like it's spelled wrong.

It seems to me like a cozy is just something that you wrap something else in, in order to keep that something else warm. By that definition, sweaters might be called "people cozies" since the main reason why people wear sweaters is to wrap up in something to be warm. Maybe a hug is a temporary cozy.

Some of my favorite kids live so far away that it's impossible for me to get as many hugs and cozy snuggles as I'd like, so for a long time I've felt that a good way for me to hug those kids is to send comfy sweaters that they can wrap up in and get a hug from Annie Grook whenever they like. Maybe that's kind of hoky, but it makes me feel good, and I hope those kids like knowing that somebody way far away loves them.

One of those kids just had her very first birthday! This is Brenda's baby Katherine, who shares my birthday. Her sweater was a little late, but hopefully she didn't notice too much.

Check out that cutie booty!

The pattern is the Duck Jacket from Animal Knits by Zoe Mellor. I've wanted to make this sweater for a really long time, so I've had the yarn for a number of years. The blue is Lion Brand Cotton Ease in a now-discontinued color. The white is a baby cotton, the yellow is Tahki Cotton Classic, and the orange is another discontinued Cotton Ease color... the same shade with which I made Maggie's cable purse.

I used US3 and US6 needles, omitted the daisies all over the body of the jacket, and used the most perfect buttons ever. It was a fun knit, but once my deadline had passed and I still wasn't done, it was difficult to keep the momentum going. It was worth it, though. Thanks for the pictures, Brenda!

Sometimes there are kids I don't know very well that I get to keep cozy, too. Remember the Notre Dame sweater set?

The little guy is big enough to sport his team's colors, and his grandma was gracious enough to send me a picture. What a cutie!

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On a completely different yet related note, did you know there's such a thing as an apple cozy? Bizarre, I know, but my PPTC really wanted one, and since today was her last day in this job, I knit her one as a going away present.

I modified this pattern so I could use some of the Rainbow Mills mercerized cotton I got this summer from my sister-in-law.

In this case, you're not trying to keep the apple warm as much as you're trying to keep it from getting beat up and bruised in your lunch box.

I suppose it's not as ridiculous as a grape cozy might be...