Pumpkin Spice Hot Water Bottle Cover

Gauge: 24 sts x 26 rounds on 4mm needles, stockinette (stranded) Sizes: Mini **Regular** Yarn: DK or Fingering held double (see below for amounts) MC 35g **50**g, CC1 5g **8**g, CC2 5g **10-11**g, CC3 5-6g **15**g Needles: 4mm circular needles with 40-80cm / 16-32” cable Finished Size: 14.25 **20.5** cm / 5.5 **8**” x 18 **29**cm / 7 **11.5**” not including cuff Accessories: Embroidery needle, stitch markers, 500ml **2L** hot water bottle **Difficulty**  Intermediate  **Techniques** Judys Magic Cast On OR long tail cast on and mattress stitch Working in the round Increasing  Decreasing  Stranded Colour work Following a chart  **About the pattern** The Pumpkin Spice HWBC pattern comes with fully charted instructions for the Pumpkin Spice sample shown and a Create Your Own section to show you how to design your own unique autumnal hot water bottle cover! Please check out the projects of my wonderful testers who came up with some truly lovely ideas. Instructions are also given to recreate the CYO sample shown. **Yarn & Gauge** It is important to match the gauge as closely as you can so your cover fits your bottle, make sure to swatch the colourwork pattern in the round. Pay attention to your round gauge, if it isn’t correct your cover might be too long or short. When choosing yarn it is best to go for something woolly or ‘toothy’. This is so your colourwork stitches blend together nicely to form one cohesive fabric and your cover is as warm and cosy as possible! It is also advised to weave in your ends as you go as there are quite few of them! Try something slightly variegated or speckled for a more realistic pumpkin, but stick to solids for the other colours. Amounts are based on an average DK of 100m per 50g or fingering (held double) of 200m per 50g. Samples use Filcolana Saga (MC, CC1), RiverKnits BFL 4ply (CC2), Woolly Mammoth Fibres Natural Sock (CC3) (all held double). **Construction** Worked bottom up and in the round starting with Judy’s Magic Cast On, increases are made to shape the bottom of the cover. The body of the cover is worked using stranded colourwork (charted) with 2 colours being used at once apart from round 24 27 where 3 colours are used. If you struggle with this, you can use duplicate stitch instead. Some of the extra motifs also use 3 colours per round. The neck is shaped with decreases and finished with a 1x1 or 2x2 rib collar worked using the magic loop method or on DPNs. Magic loop is recommended for the Mini size.