Back in 2012, I was living in China and eagerly awaiting the arrival of my second granddaughter. My daughter, Tricia, requested that I make her a Christmas stocking. She picked out a pattern and sent it to me. The pattern was Holiday Flurries by Yvonne Mendelson. This was a new type of knitting for me. Thus far, I had only knit items of one color. I ordered wool of the Andes from Knitpicks in Hollyberry, Spruce and Cloud. One skein of each color. On my next trip to the United States, I picked up the yarn and watched a lot of videos about knitting with more than one color of yarn. The trick I have found for using more than one color of yarn in a project is to make sure I bring the yarn under and around the last color used. This helped me to avoid holes that often can occur when using more than one color.
My daughter has since had four children and you guessed it, she requested the same stocking with each one. Then one year she said, “Geez, mom if you have time, you could knit Daniel and I one as well.”
When you knit these stocking you end up with small balls of leftover worsted weight yarn. Worsted weight yarn is not a yarn I use a lot of. I ended up with 6 little balls of each color and wasn’t sure what to do with it. There wasn’t a lot of yarn but too much to waste.
Fast forward to 2020! I began teaching a sock knitting club at Blueberry Cottage Yarns in Plymouth, Indiana. For the month of December, I decided this would be a great sock for the ladies to knit. The pattern was well written, reasonably priced and the shop had great yarn on hand for the class. I, however, didn’t need a seventh sock! I decided to use the little balls of yarn leftover for all of the other Christmas stockings I had made.
I used Winter Funderland Stocking by Wendy Gaal and the leftover balls of yarn. I particularly loved the picot edge on the top of the stocking as well as the braid. They look amazing and turned out great. It was a wonderful use of leftover yarn!
As you can see from the above picture I love to make Christmas stockings. I love to make all kinds of things for Christmas as you will see in the coming months. As my daughter says, “You are sneaky mom, you’ve made a lot of our Christmas decorations.” Here’s hoping it brings them wonderful memories long after I am gone.