Design your own tea cozy tutorial

There are heaps of patterns out there for a plain tea cozy - admittedly more so knitted than crocheted - choose one of these for your base. Basically your are going to make two squares/rectangles that are the height of the teapot from the base to the top of the handle, and the width big enough to go around the teapot when joined together. Then join the two square together and knit/crochet in the round, decreasing to fit over the lid nicely. Here's my naked tea pot (a small 2 cup cheapy at $5), and crocheted base (charcoal):

 I then added a 'frill' to the handle end. To do this chain a length that is as long as the opening of the handle (up the side + across the top + down the other side). Turn, ch1, and 2sc (or dc) in each chain, turn again at the end and 2sc in each stitch again. To make it more ruffly do more sc per chain/stitch. To make a less full ruffle, do less sc in each stitch (maybe increase only every 2nd stitch).:

Now add some fun texture! Here I have done some barnacle like shapes. Use a magic ring to start the center of each shape - maybe 15 to 25sc in the magic ring. Then working in rounds sc in each stitch. In the first few rounds you could increase 3 to 6 stitches per round to give a more 'pointy' barnacle. Make them all different - have fun - don't stress them, just make it up as you go! So here is my final tea cosy! A little Loani Prior like, but definitely my own style!