Holiday Hot Water Bottle Cozy

It's not perfect, but it's done. I'm reminding myself that I can knit another one, and having this gift checked off my list is more important right now! Weaving in all the ends and washing this tonight, then getting it wrapped up for Mom.

Ravelry Project: Holiday Hot Water Bottle

Pattern: Rachael's ISBN Hot Water Bottle Cozy by Rachael Herron, modified to use stranded colorwork instead of the cable panel and with a shorter neck. The heart band at the bottom is from the chart in the Hearty-stripy sock pattern by Patty McEldowney.

Yarn: Plymouth Yarn, Galway, color 16 (red) and color 127 (light green)

More Rock Doilies

More crochet lace rock doilies:

...and what the undersides look like:

These are fun and a good, healthy way for me to relieve stress. These are all freehanded - I don't work from a pattern, just improvise motifs and then close the doily around the rocks with crocheted loops and decreases, using triple crochet, double crochet, and single crochet stitches. Margaret Oomen's crochet covered sea stones have been a huge inspiration for these; you can find a free pattern for Little Urchin Crochet Covered Sea Stones on the Purl Bee blog and photos of Margaret's work on her blog, Resurrection Fern

Minor knit fail (happy holidays?)

Years of experience have taught me to get started on holiday gift making early. The year Mom got a pair of felted slippers that were still soaking wet, for example. This year I'm knitting a hot water bottle cozy for her, and so far, I have managed one band of colorwork that made my right hand hurt for two days, and I'm going to rip it out. (The colorwork, not my hand.)



My hand hurt because I usually knit Combined, with the yarn in my left hand, and it suits me just fine. For working more than one color per row/round, though, it can be slow going. I've tried carrying two colors in my left, with wonky results. I've knit with one color at a time, and that works for some colorwork. Figuring it's a skill I want to acquire anyway, I've been knitting this cozy with one color in my left hand and one color in my right. It feels awkward and my tension is still a little uneven, but nothing that wouldn't even out a bit with a good blocking and which really doesn't matter too much (it's a hot water bottle cozy, after all, it just needs to keep the bottle insulated and keep it from burning Mom). The lack of contrast in the colors is just not working for me, though. Can you tell that the colorwork strip is a band of hearts? I can't, and I knit it. I wound off half the skein of the darker pink and put it in dyebath of red and pink food coloring last night, and I'm also going by YarnStory this afternoon, where I may just go ahead and buy more yarn. Hopefully this will get done on time!

Ravelry project: Hot Water Bottle Cozy
Pattern: ISBN Hot Water Bottle Cozy by Rachael Herron, modified to use the colorwork chart for Hearty-Stripy Socks by Polly McEldowney.

Swatching:

I picked up 2 skeins of Nadezdha's Crayon Box handdyed worsted weight wool yarn at YarnStory and have started swatching for a scarf. This colorway is "Ka'a'awa", which can be translated as "shallow water" so I was looking for something evocative of that. This is called Harrow Stitch in one of the Mon Tricot stitch dictionaries I have on hand, and I think it's working out rather nicely.

Kokua Market Yarnstorming

We have a little tropical yarnstorm going on in Honolulu over at the Kokua Market Natural Foods Cooperative - more details on the Aloha Knitters blog.