Thoughts on the Difficult Sweater (Not Really, It's a Hot Water Bottle Cover)

We've been a bit preoccupied around here lately, due to the generosity of schoolchildren in the area sharing the stomach flu among their classmates!  Julia's had the worst of it, poor lamb, and is still not well after most of the week, but at least she actually wants to eat, today.  (By the way, grape-flavored Pedialyte stains.)  I sat with Julia after lunch today and watched "Sesame Street" while I darned in the ends of my March "Knitter's Almanac" project, which in more ambitious hands would have been a Difficult Sweater (Not Really), also known as a Chainmail or Trellis sweater, but for me is a tidy little hot water bottle cover.

(The wools were all unlabeled, except for the light gray, which was a fairly ancient Chat Botté -- some of the others may have been Anny Blatt, but I can't say for certain.  The piece is approximately 7.5 in./19 cm by 11 in./28 cm, and about 28 sts per 4 in./10 cm, blocked to fit.)

Here is a close-up of the Trellis stitch --

Like apparently many other knitters (some of whom commented here at the beginning of the month), I did not find this pattern particularly appealing at first.  I will say now, though, that color choice can make the world of difference.  I don't love it yet, but I don't hate it, at least!

You can also see here the difference between plain stockinette with color changes and purl-when-you-can (or purl on the first row of a new color).  The plain parts, "inside" the trellises, are quite straightforward, and the parts "outside" are livelier, more subtly so when the colors are similar in tone, and more obviously when there is more of a contrast, such as here where the gray makes a distinct fleck against the blue or the lavendar.

I did realize after the second pattern repeat that I should have had fewer color changes at the "busy" part of it, where the twists and the smaller oval are -- so many purls there make it harder to see the shifts of the trellis.  I would recommend color bands of at least three rows at that point, instead of the two that I used, to make the twists stand out.

As for shaping, I made my life a lot easier by simply knitting a tube as the Trellis pattern dictated, and did not attempt to shape it to my hot water bottle.  (To be honest, I didn't swatch -- this was my swatch -- so I had no idea of how big it was going to be.  I did start it over after the first inch, when it was obviously going to be too small to go around, but other than that it was just a good guess.)  I'd thought that when sewing up I would leave a little slit at the bottom, because the bottle has a tab there for hanging, but since I knitted four repeats of the Trellis (for looks), the piece was quite long enough to cover the whole thing.  I added plain white shanked buttons and crochet chain loops at the shoulders, and there you have it!

Comments

[Marie]

I hope your kids feel better! Stomach bugs are no fun (not that any illness is but they're particularly icky).
The hot bottle cover looks very nice. I really like the stitch pattern...I may have to go find the book at the library now.

[Beth]

I hope Julia feels well soon - I've had my daughter Caroline home with what sounds like the same thing. We've just been nesting on the couch.

Well that certainly is the best dressed hot water bottle I've ever seen. I know I'll never make a cover for my hot water bottle, because in freezing cold western NY we like that hot rubber right against our skin! Anything to keep warm.

[Zeila]

Wow, that is a very impressive stitch! Nice work!

Every kid in my princess' school has had a nasty bug with high fevers and a few cases of pneumonia. I'm holding my breath waiting for her to start coughing..

[Amy]

I really like the colors and agree about the colors making a difference. I didn't care for the picture of the pattern in the book, but I like what you did with it.

ps-the orange colored fruit flavored pedialyte stains too. :)

[Amie]

Oh, that's a fantastic pattern... hmmm... I needed another project like a hole in the head but....

[Christina]

I love the colors you chose, and your craftmanship is impecable. But- and this has NOTHING to do with you- the purl stitches somehow bother me. I long for a smooth field of stitches between the trellis stitches. Give EZ my apologies, please.