King Alfred the Great Tea Cosy

Inspired by history and the mystery of King Alfred the Great and where his remains might be, I thought I'd design Alfred the Saxon King's knitted effigy.

I love pictures that have been drawn in the Middle Ages, usually by monks. I love their crudeness and the style of the time and I have tried to capture this in my design.

The King Alfred tea cosy also takes on board the legend of the burnt cakes. And of course we all know nothing goes better with tea than cake, it's just a shame they were bread cakes; and that he forgot about them and let them burn. So we have our heroic king, holding his tray of burnt bread cakes.

Now I know legend says Alfred was out hiding from the Vikings at the time in a peasant woman's house, and that the woman didn't recognise him and assumed he was a soldier of Wessex; so he wouldn't have been wearing his crown or any regalia. But I have used artistic licence so modern people easily recognise him as Alfred the Great.

All this mis-recognition, I blame on those monks and their crude doodlings!

I'm really looking forward to knitting this one. It really sparks my interest and I thought it would be a fun thing to knit over the festive period. Well I can't not knit for a week, so I thought I'd choose something that personally I found exciting.











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