2010: The Year of the Hot Water Bottle

There comes a time in every mother's life when her sons cease coveting hand crafted toys and eschew her attempts to knit him sweaters.  That time came for me this December.  Faced with three sons, and determined to resist the sucking black hole of the electronic Christmas, I struggled with how to keep homeyness in the holiday.  Concurrent with this preoccupation with providing my children the same sense of coziness which has traditionally surrounded the holidays, was a desire to increase the warmth in hour home without increasing our heating costs.  Our alarmingly high gas bills of last year prompted an initiative to drop our home thermostat to 56 degrees at night...a change that while fiscally and environmentally sound, was met with much consternation by the kids.  It was this convergence of needs...emotional and physical warmth...that led me to the perfect family gift idea for 2010:  hot water bottle covers!  My enthusiasm for my great idea made me want to share my idea with others - my hairdresser, for example.  Twenty two years old and lacking any worldly experience, she looked at me like I had transformed into Medusa in her chair.  Not only did she not share my enthusiasm for the plan, but she had never even heard of a hot water bottle.  Hmmm...I began to have second thoughts.

I decided I needed a hook...I needed something about these hot water bottle covers which would make the boys love them.  Rather than a stash-busting project, I would need to CUSTOMIZE these covers.  My eldest loves purple...that was easy.  My second wanted bright orange and had picked out this marvelous blue and orange yarn a year prior and  I STILL hadn't found the right project...easy.  But what to do for the youngest?  Still young enough to enjoy animals, but considering himself too old for a stuffed animal, I thought I would try an animal cover, and so I enquired as to what was currently his favorite animal.  Long gone were the simple days of bears and bunnies; thanks to first grade and animal reports, his current favorite turns out to be the platypus.  OK, that's a challenge.

Now here's a fit any felter would be proud of!

Convinced that December would be a blur of knitting and tearing out a multitude of attempts at playtypussy covers as I attempted to design my own, I thought I might as well at least try checking the web for a knit platypus design to adapt so as to minimize my time sacrifice.  I turned to Ravelry patterns and ...skeptically...dolefully ...searched "platypus hot water bottle,"  and I'LL BE DARNED IF THERE WASN"T ALREADY A PATTERN!  Dancing alone in front of the computer I downloaded and printed the pattern and thought, THIS is why I love the knitting community...someone out there understands me!

So, here is a happy photo of my boys with their hot water bottles on Christmas.  They loved their presents and use them EVERY night.  They claim that their hot water bottles are their favorite belongings (so long as Mom is keeping the thermostat just above freezing).  And visit Brella on Ravelry for a link to the platypus hot water bottle cover pattern.  Enjoy!!!