Hottie Bottie Cover

The final product:  the kitchen hottie

         

During that recent hot spell at the end of September, I was to be found knitting....yes, a hot water bottle cover.  As one does in boiling hot temperatures!!  Hard to predict that temps are going to hit 30C when it's supposed to be Autumn!

The cover is meant to be knitted on DPNs and despite only ever having one go at it (those stripy wrist warmers from earlier this year...) I thought I'd tackle it.  However, it all went wrong in the first few rows as I got rather tangled trying to knit a rib stitch.  So I gave up and did them on straight needles, thinking that once the rib was done, I'd change to DPNs.  However, it also meant several increase rows and a colour change.  I manage to screw this up as well, so pulled that out and knitted on straight needles until the increases were done, the colour had changed successfully and the rest was just straightforward knitting.

As you can see, this went quite well.  It didn't take long for the "hedgehog" feeling I always get with DPNs to settle down and miraculously, the needles began to behave themselves and knitting was very quick.

You can see by the photo above that the rib part still has to be sewn up.

And then the easy part (had it ever been easy...?!) was over and I had to tackle the decreasing part at the end.  Despite the fact that I seemed to have one less stitch that I was supposed to (perhaps it packed its bags and left home in a huff), I got the decreases perfectly.

You can see the shaping on the photo below...by this time, it was starting to look like a hot water bottle cover!!

Colour variation is a result of flash photography!

Now came the really interesting part:  I had to get the remaining stitches onto two needles and then attempt Kitchener Stitch.  I've never done that before and thought it might be rather tricky!  However, the fantastic book I've got, Purls of Wisdom, explained it so clearly that I couldn't go wrong.  I concentrated very hard and sat there counting - one two three four - until I had done what had to be done to every stitch.  I was amazed at how neat the grafting was.  I thought there were bound to be some mistakes!  In fact, the only complaint I have is what I was supposed to do with the last stitch!  In the end, I pulled it through to the wrong side and sewed it in, but it made a little bump (which can be seen on the left.)

However, I haven't beaten myself up too much over it - this is the first hottie cover I've done, the first time I've done Kitchener Stitch (or sock grafting).  And my daughter loves it!  It's her "morning" hottie - we somehow have to get through the winter in our bitterly cold flat without turning on the heating for the simple reason that I can't afford to - my fuel bills have shot up so wildly without turning on a hot tap that we won't be able to stay warm.  For once, I wish global warming was just that - warm.  Otherwise we're going to be hugging our hotties all winter long.

That's what the cute pocket is for:  cold morning hands!

The green matches the kitchen!

Next up is a lovely creamy-coloured one for the lounge....