Coffee Cup Sweater

Who loves coffee? :)

My mother is a huge fan of coffee!  She loves her coffee to the point that it would burn the average person's tongue, or at least that's what we tease her about.  But she does love it hot!!!  But coffee cups can get hot sometimes, which makes them hard to hold while they're still hot unless you rely solely on the handle, which I know I never do.  So for a Christmas gift for my mum, I made her a coffee cozy, or as she calls it, a coffee cup sweater.

This pattern is easy and really good for a quick gift.  I made this in about 2 or so hours two days before Christmas so that I could give it to her on Christmas Eve.  I would really recommend this for people who are new at knitting.  I found this project on Ravelry.com, which has given me so many wonderful ideas for new things to try.  The link to my part of the project is here.  Just click on the pattern under the title.  The only reason it isn't posted onto the blog post itself is because the project is a PDF that you download to your computer.  As you can see from the photo on the left, the pattern is striped.  You don't have to do the pattern this way if you don't want to.  All you have to do is pick one color, and then keep knitting in that color and ignore the notes that tell you to change colors.

 I would say the one challenge for this project would be that there's a part where you have to cast on in the middle of the pattern from where you have to bind off to make the button hole.  As a person who's still learning techniques for knitting, I didn't know how to do this properly.  My favorite method for learning new things knitting is YouTube, which is where I sought out the answer to how to do this.  Just keep searching until you find a video that explains it to your liking.  I would post the link to the one I used, but I'm having trouble finding it.

This is with the button sewn on the
wrong side of the pattern

I love this pattern!  With it being quick and easy, it really makes for a one day project, which is useful for me as a busy college student.  My one big tip about this project is BE CAREFUL WHICH SIDE YOU SEW ON THE BUTTON!!!  I made the mistake of rushing to sew on the button and ended up putting it one the wrong side of the pattern, so when she put it on her cup that night, I had to take it back from her and fix it.  Basically, make sure you're putting it on the right side of the pattern before you decide to sew it on.  It can save you from being laughed at like I was (but it was pretty funny).

If anyone has any questions about the pattern or knitting or anything in general, just leave me a comment. :)