The pattern for The Shopkeeper’s Friend is found on our blog here.

The Shopkeeper’s Friend is an excellent pattern for those looking to level up from their Hundred Stitch Snood, without branching out into a sweater or something larger and more complicated.

This pattern is knitted in the round using magic loop technique to work the whole cover. It has a seamless cast on (Judy’s Magic Cast on), directional increases, directional decreases and a very neat i-cord bind off to ensure the top of the cover grips the top of the hot water bottle.

When you come into our Real Life Shop in Bristol, you’ll probably notice it’s quite cold in here over the winter. It normally hovers around 10-12ºc on a good day, and with the ever-rising cost of energy, I’ve had to think on how the team and I can stay warm without putting expensive heaters on for every single minute of the day.

Our solution to this problem is a tiny hot water bottle, only 0.5L, in a little cosy case, which sits nice and snugly in the back of your trousers, under your many layers of sweaters. We all know that hot water bottles need covers to stop you being burnt by them, and we just couldn’t find a good pattern for one, so here was born The Shopkeeper’s Friend.

This pattern is probably best suited for those who have knitted in the round before, or who are competent knitters just waiting to give it a try. In the Real Life Shop we’d normally suggest that by the time you get to this, you will have knitted some swatches and a snood, maybe even a hat. There will be quite a few techniques in here that may be a bit tricky, but I’ve tried to include videos for each step you may find tricky, or need a refresher on. As usual, read the whole pattern through before you start so there are no surprises, and if you don’t glue with the particular video linked, try searching the technique to find one you do get on with.

The Shopkeeper’s Friend is made to fit a mini hot water bottle (500 ml capacity), measuring approximately 12 cm wide, 21 cm from bottom to top, and neck-base (where the neck meets the bottle) circumference of 14 cm.

Gauge:
28 sts x 38 rows per 10 cm in stockinette on a 2.5mm needle (or whatever size is required to meet gauge)

Materials:

Approximately 85 m of 4ply/ fingering weight yarn. I used 23 g of WoolMatters Ethical Sock Yarn 4ply (360 m/100 g). Other suitable yarns may be Regia Premium Merino Yak Sock Yarn (400m/100g), Kremke Eco Cashmere (112m/25g), or other slightly bulkier 4ply/fingering weight yarns.

2.5 mm 80 cm circular needle (or whatever size needed to meet gauge - my gauge is quite loose so you may need larger needles.)

2x different clip-on stitch markers (one for beginning of round, one for halfway round)

Enjoy!