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 50g, CC1 5g 8g, CC2 5g 10-11g, CC3 5-6g 15g
Needles: 4mm circular needles with 40-80cm / 16-32” cable
Finished Size: 14.25 20.5 cm / 5.5 8” x 18 29cm / 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.