Chef Tea Cosy

I had a request to design a chef tea cosy in a classic chef hat, doing cheffy things.

When I think of a chef, I think of a Swedish chef with big bushy eyebrows singing "hum da-dish dee dum" as he throws ladles over his shoulders. You know, the chef from the Muppet show?

So I have gathered some images of chefs for inspiration and come up with a design of a chef wearing a white uniform and a tall white chefs hat. I liked the idea of a fat chef with a pear-shaped face, as if he has tasted a lot of food. I also thought about chef mannerisms and when you think of a chef, they do that hand gesture at the corner of their mouth, that means 'it tastes delicious'.

I was requested to give him something to hold, a thing that a chef would hold. I thought a kitchen implement or a tool of the trade, but with the composition and hand gesture expressing lovely food, I though I'd better give him a plate of something, and I thought a fish dish would look obviously like it had just been cooked.

To enhance the colour pallet I have given the chef a red neckerchief and red apron. It just adds a nice pop of colour and breaks up all that white.

The challenges for this tea cosy is definitely that gesturing hand with the upright fingers. I don't think it will be hard to knit, but it will be fiddly and inevitably lots of sewing on digits.

I would also like to give his hair some texture, so a bobbly knitting stitch might be the order of the day. Again not difficult but can be fiddly.

I think he's going to be a lovely project and a nice one to get back into knitting after the Christmas break.




Tags: food