*Life one meal, and stitch at a time*: A Tiny Sweater for a Chilled Bottle

If beer bottles and cans can have cozies, why can't a wine bottle?

I guess only fancy wine bottles can have a cozy. My sister-in-law is a classy lady, so I decided I would give her a cozy. Not just any wine cozy, but I would give her a classy hand-knitted wine bottle sweater.

For a while I wanted to take the plunge and knit a sweater, but it seemed like such a big project. I bought a book called Pints & Purls: Portable Projects for the Social Knitter by Collins and Bruce a few months ago. In this book, there is a pattern for a Wine Bottle Sweater, it seemed like the perfect project for me to get my feet wet in the world of knitting sweaters.

I used a variegated cool color yarn that I had already in my yarn stash. This particular yarn ball has been screaming my sister-in-law's name for months. Now that I had the perfect project, I thought I should knit the yarn into a wine sweater.

This project starts with knitting in the round. I have knitted in the round for mittens in the past, but it has been a long time. I had to watch a quick youtube video to make sure that I divided the stitches properly and I was off.

Needed for this project:
a skein of fine yarn, 127 yards
a set of 5 double point needles, US size 3
two small stitch holders or you could waste yarn
a stitch marker
scissors
yarn needle

I knitted the yoke (the neck) of the sweater using the double point needles, size US 3. I casted on 24 stitches and began in knit 2, purl 2 pattern for the whole yoke.

Then I began the raglan shaping, which was simpler than I thought it would be. You just knit front and back in the first stitch, knit, and then knit front and back in the second to last stitch for each needle. Once I reached 52 stitches, I knitted across the first needle, placed the stitches second needle on the stitch marker, knitted across the third needle and placed the stitches of the fourth needle on the second stitch marker.

Then I began working on the body. I divided the stitches evenly among the four needles and knitted for the length of wine bottle minus 1". Then I returned to the knit 2, purl 2 pattern for an 1" and bound off.

I placed the stitches from the first marker onto the needles, distributed evenly. I knitted for about 3 1/2". Then I used the knit 1, purl 1 pattern for 1/2". Repeat for the second sleeve. Voila, a wine sweater. Now your wine will always be ready for the fridge, or a party.

For this project, I was on a time crunch and literally finished the second sleeve under the table at the birthday party. I was only one person away from my sister-in-law, but she had no clue.

Results: She LOVED it! It made her super happy. I photo documented the whole sweater. Browse the photos below to see the transformation from yarn to sweater.