Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Christmas Stockings


Christmas stockings have always been one of my favorite holiday traditions.  Growing up, my Mom hand knit stockings for all of the kids in my family.  Mine has a Santa in a chimney on it.  I've always treasured it.

Because the stocking my Mom made for me makes me so happy, I decided I would make one for my own son this Christmas.  I found a free knitting pattern on-line and dug out some leftover yarn my Aunt had given to me, and went to town.  I didn't have the correct needle size for the pattern, but figured bigger is always better, right?  Well, the proportions came out kind of funny -- sort of ended up as a giant tube.

Well, there were still two weeks until Christmas, so why stop there, right?  I decided to use smaller needles and pay better attention to proportions and make one for Brian.  I developed a diamond pattern repeat and went to town.  It came out much better.



Still a few days left before Christmas... I kept knitting!  This time I made one for me.  I had run out of red yarn, but had some nice blue.  To keep it seasonal, I was thinking about a pattern that was sort of starry nightish.  That reminded me of some mittens that our friends in Norway had knit for me many years ago.  I dug them out of the mitten drawer and copied down the pattern with a few edits to adapt it to the stocking.

Hand-knit Norwegian Mitten made by Marie-Brit
pattern adapted from mitten for stocking


I finished it on Christmas eve  - just in time!
No, it doesn't say "retch"



Here are our stockings loaded up by Santa on Christmas eve.  Henry's stocking may look funny, but it's very functional!  I'll probably make a better one for him in the future.

And the look on his face Christmas morning made all that last minute knitting worthwhile!

What's all this?

Is that for me?
This is fun!



2 comments:

  1. Oh my god, what's cuter, the stockings or that little boy? Love him. Wow. Never met him, but love him. Your stockings (especially the "Retch" stocking!) are amazing. Wow.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Julie! I think he's pretty darn cute too, but of course I'm biased.

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