Cozy for Metal Water Bottle

Now that I have switched to metal water bottle from plastic, I decided that I needed a cover for the water bottle as holding metal in my bare hand could at time be quite cold, but probably quite nice in really hot weather. As I haven't had it long enough yet to see what happens in summer, I imagine that it will also absorb condensation, keeping the outside of the bottle dry.

Now my next question was what material to use and what technique? I decided on knitting as I like knitting while watching the TV shows I recorded the day before on my DVR. Ok, knitting it is, now I have to decide on cotton or wool. I want something that is not very bulky and choose cotton. I discovered a few years ago that I can knit a lovely material with the cotton threads from the sewing thread cones I inherited from my husbands grandfather. I have about 8 cones in various colors of brown. They date back to the 1950's or earlier.

I used 6 threads and 3mm knitting needles. As I had already knitted like this before I did not need to knit a swatch and knew how many stitches per inch. I measured my water bottle' circumference (9.5 inches) and height (6 inches) and started the project.

Cast on 9 stitches and knitted 1 row
the next row increase between each stitch and knit 1 row
now knit two stitches and increase a stitch, knit 1 row
repeat the increases at the same rate, knitting 1 more stitch between the increases until 6 knitted stitches and a total of 66 stitches
the pattern used is 5 knit stitches 1 purl stitch for 5 rows and then 1 row purl.
knit the pattern 5 units high
for the 6th pattern knit a row of holes (yarn over knit two together and repeat for the whole row), knit 3 rows in knit stitch
repeat hole row 2 more times
the cover will be double thickness so the inside is knitted in plain knit stitch
when the inside part is the same length as the outside start reducing the stitches in the opposite order of the increases at the beginning.
leave about 2 feet of thread and cut, thread through a big eyed darning needle and pass the thread through all the stitches on the needle and pull tight. Anchor and darn in extra thread.
repeat on other end but this time sew the 2 bottom ends together so that they won't separate.
make a cord and thread through the holes at the top. Use a toggle to hold the cord tight. (I had some old one from when the kids jackets still had those).

My Other Thread Knitted Items

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