French Press Cozy

This was a quick project. Finally I made a knit that my husband actually used. It only took me 25 years or so.

Over the Summer, we did a full kitchen renovation. The space was ripped out to the bare walls. In the preparatory packing, we discarded a lot of old kitchen appliances and so forth.

When we got access to the new kitchen, my husband went out and got an expensive new coffee maker. He hated it. Said the coffee tasted funny. We when through soakings and vinegar rinses. Eventually, Ian went out and bought a French Press, which he LOVES. It cost about 1/4 the price of the fancy coffee maker, which is sitting in the basement. The only drawback is that the coffee cools quickly.

Hence, the cozy. It was knit of aran weight wool blend yarn. It is a simple 6" x 10" rectangle with a seed stitch border that ties onto the press. It keeps the coffee warm long enough for my husband to drink the entire pot. He does not share.

Addendum: I gave Ian a steel, thermal French Press for Christmas. The old press lets us make enough coffee for more people or will be used for tea.

Barakh

Ok, I've REALLY been procrastinating. This is the finished sample pouch. The Hebrew lettering for Barckh/Baruch is on the bottom of the pouch. It took me forever to figure out the correct way to knit this. First, I had to find a source for the word Baruch in Hebrew. Since I have no working knowledge of the language, this was difficult. The next step was to find charted Hebrew letters. I was eventually able to find the charts in a site that specializes in needlepoint. I'll post links below once I find them again. I did most of the research during the early Autumn and probably finished the knitting before November. The pouch was knitted entirely in laceweight yarn on size zero double pointed needles.

I knit the pouch using Fair Isle techniques. I hated every minute of the stranding. It was so tedious. In retrospect, this pouch should have been knit in the stripes shown, with the lettering added in duplicate stitch. It would have been much easier. Final note: The pouch was a gauge/size prototype for a bookmark. Not what I wanted. It was too thick. The stranded yarn and circular construction made it too dense for a proper bookmark.