Warm and Cozy

I've been looking forward to writing this post for a long time.  So much so, that I finally stopped procrastinating and wrote up the pattern for a couple of gifts that I made for this past Christmas.  This means I can stop looking forward to writing the post because now I'm actually writing it!  Yay!

The last two gifts that I have to show off are hot water bottle covers that I designed for a couple of friends.  I'm not sure what made me decide on hot water bottle covers specifically, other than that I had been wanting to knit hot water bottle covers for some time.  I was partially inspired by the My Favourite Things infinity scarf.  I really liked the idea of making a personalized cover for each of my friends, using a few cute motifs for each one.  A hot water bottle doesn't have a lot of room, though, and when searching for colorwork motifs that reminded me of my friends I couldn't find what I was looking for.  This finally led me to get out my markers and graph paper, and I started doodling.

After I had figured out a few motifs that I was happy with, I realized that what I was designing had a "things that keep you warm" sort of theme, which was kind of perfect, considering that the finished product would also be something to keep you warm.  I hauled out my entire stash of leftover balls of wool worsted weight yarn (mostly Cascade 220 and Berocco Vintage), and started knitting.  I picked groups of six or seven colours that sort of went together for each one, and I'm really pleased with the finished product.

So here they are!  The link to download the pattern is here.