Christmas Knitting Finally Revealed!

So yes, this is a late post, but I did get the actual knitting done in time for Christmas! There may have been some airport knitting involved, or sitting up kitchenering after the intended gift recipients had gone to bed; I'm not telling.

What I am telling is that I decided after Christmas of 2005 that it wasn't really fair for my brother and me to have all the fun of getting goodies in our stockings. Ours is a "presents on Christmas Eve" kind of family, and then Christmas morning is when us kids get our stockings, which generally have just little fun gifts in them. (I should point out that both of our stockings were knit by Grandma, long ago, from some really bright acrylic yarn. And, as you might be able to tell from the picture, they're ginormous. That's a standard CD sitting there in that picture, just to give you a sense of how big these really are.)

It occurred to me that it might be fun for Mom and Dad to have their own stockings as well; I decided therefore I should knit their stockings, matched as closely as possible to the kids' stockings. So what if I didn't have a pattern and Grandma is no longer here to ask how she'd done it? Over that same Christmas vacation I had knit two of the "training socks" from our good friends at Knitty. I am totally the kind of knitter who can knit a simple training pattern twice and then decide that's enough practice to be able to make something on a much larger scale, and without a pattern. It's just a sock, right? Of course right.

So I grabbed some Red Heart in a slightly less fluorescent shade, and my trusty size 7 bamboo double-points, and I set to work. I used the Twisted German cast-on; I was sure I learned it from Knitty, but I can't find their article any more, so try here if you're interested. (I really recommend this cast-on for anything that requires a really stretchy edging; if you're going to rib right after casting on, this one is going to work for you.) My other sneaky trick was to use an extra-long tail; beyond what I used for the cast-on, I left myself several yards which I wound up in a butterfly knot. After I had something to work into, I used that tail to crochet the hanging loop and then sewed in the end. This way there's only one yarn end to sew in at the top, not three (like you'd get if you cast on with a regular length, and then attached a separate loop). Some two-by-two ribbing, and a couple of color changes later, I had the top done, and was ready for a lot of stockinette. Knit, knit, knit, every stitch for like two feet. I did learn that when you're using dps it's important to knit an extra stitch onto each needle every round or two, so you don't show the gap between needles.

I did come up with something rather different in the way of a heel flap. Kelly Girl sock knitting expert Julie identified it as a Dutch square heel, maybe. It's what you get when you follow the Knitty training sock instructions (just sized up to 60 stitches instead of 36 or whatever is on the original pattern). Then it was just a little more decreasing (and I have completely learned how the decreases work: ssk gives you a slant to the left, k2tog gives you a right slant, very easy) and then a tiny bit of kitchener stitch, and done!

Mom and Dad were totally surprised, even though Mom had totally watched me pack my own Christmas stocking to take home with me the year before (which I never do) and very pleased. I'm pretty pleased with how well they turned out as well. I learned a few new useful things, and secret knitting is always fun!

One final note to any unnamed brothers that may encounter this: Mom's is green, and Dad's is red. I told you that when I handed them to you. Yes, I did. It is not my fault that you put your contributions in the wrong stockings. That is all.