Christmas Stocking Swap - Part 1

I have been involved in a Christmas Stocking swap through my favourite site of all time Ravelry.

Basically you had to knit a Christmas Stocking for someone and someone else was doing the honours for you.  I was knitting for a lovely lady in the US - and as I know how much the Americans love us Scots I thought I would do a Scottish theme.  So here I give you the fruits of my hard work.

First up the stocking itself - I used Cascade 220 - which I am loving to knit with.  So easy and the colours are fantastic.  I based the pattern on the Cascade Christmas Stocking pattern and just adapted away.

Here it is just near the beginning, from the top, you can see how the fair isle is working with the threads being carried around on the inside.

I kept the colours to just the two -blue and white.  I used simple patterns on the majority of the stocking with saltires going round the top:

The heel was interesting to knit - you put the stitches onto waste yarn and carry on down the foot working in the round - so you end up with a long

 tube with a hole in it held together with waste yarn.  Kind of cool.  You then finish the toe and go back to the heel and finish that off too.  I just did the heel and toe in the plain cream.  I need to work on my sock finishing methods as they weren't very neat.

Finally I went back up to the top and used i-cord to give an edge and a loop at the top.  I didn't realise until I had finished that the loop was in the wrong place - and was on the side, not the back.  It's a feature!!!  Honest.

Then all that was left to do was to stuff the stocking with goodies.  I put in some handmade stitch markers - made by the lovely Vicki at Wild Fire Fibres.  They were so cute - I bought a set for me too - and some Christmas Tree ones too.

I added in some mulled wine sachets, a macaroon, some oatcakes and 2 skeins of Jamieson's yarn.  I hope everything is loved!

Finishing things

Lots of things been finished off today - so thought I'd blog about them too. First up - here is my first Baby Surprise Jacket



I absolutely loved knitting this. It's not perfect - I lost track of some of the increases and decreases but it was fun and I think it looks great. I used Debbie Bliss' Cashmerino Aran - which was a dream to knit with. I love the contrasting stripes - makes it look super smart. The buttons are originally from my Grandmother's button tin.


Next up is another Baby Surprise jacket knitted in Kraft Koala's Aran:


I'm not as happy with this one - think I prefer BSJ's in single colours - rather than variegated yarn. Sewed the buttons on today - after emptying my button tin trying to find something that looked good. Think the brown ones are perfect - love how the yarn used to sew them on changes colour from button to button.





Next is the lovely pinwheel blanket.


I made this back in July on the way back from France. I used Peaches and Creme 100% cotton - which is quite thick to knit with. I love the pattern on this but stopped too soon - I was eager to finish it. I should have kept going. I may give this to Orla to use as a toy blanket. I still need to block it as the edges curl.

I love the detail on the centre though - the pinwheel itself - will definitely be knitting more of this - with wool next time I think.




Finally I have my Christmas Stocking.



This has been made for a swap I am involved in. I am making for a lovely American lady so I thought I would go overboard on the 'Scottish' theme. I used just two colours - a lot of the patterns I looked at were full of bright colours and made me feel quite ill. I like the simplicity and the contrast of just two. I put saltires around the top and the just used simple patterns down the leg and foot with plain heel and toe. I put i-cord around the top and used that to add a loop. It is not as neat as I hoped - but I still need to block it which I am hoping will squash the heel and toe into shape a little more. It was a fun knit and if I get time before Christmas I may make another.


That's all for now folks...