Fruit Cozies

When Hobbies Collide! I love to knit, and I love to pack lunches, so what could be better than knitting things for packed lunches?

This summer I've been knitting fruit cozies: cotton jackets made to keep fruit from getting bruised in a lunch bag or purse. So far I've made (clockwise from bottom left) an orange cozy, a banana cozy, two apple cozies, and a pear.

If any of you knitters are wondering how it's done, I got the original Apple Sweater Pattern from a seller on etsy. I wouldn't feel right sharing the pattern since it belongs to someone else. But I will tell you I made a few modifications:

• I left off the collar on the apples, because I didn't like it.
  
• I added a little leaf to most of the fruit (CO 3 st; Row1 knit; R2 purl; R3 K1f&b, K1, K1f&b (5 st); R4 purl; R5 knit; R6 purl; R7 K2tog, K1, K2tog; R8 purl; R9 Sl 1, K2tog, psso; weave in ends and attach to the cozy).
  
• I knit an extra 5 rows before casting off to make the pear.
  
• I knit the same cozy pattern in seed stitch for the orange.

I'm still playing with it and will probably go back and make the cozies bigger (especially the orange -- man, the oranges I found at the market today were bigger than the grapefruit!) and change the construction. If I do, I figure at that point I will have gotten far enough away from the original that I'll feel safe posting the new pattern here.

Of course, I also needed a banana for my collection, and since I couldn't find a pattern for a banana cozy, I made one up! Go ahead and download my Banana Cozy Pattern and make your own. And don't worry, there's plenty of time to get it done before school starts again!