Free Christmas Stocking Pattern from Vickie Howell

The fun knitwear designer Vickie Howell has been kind enough to offer a free knitting pattern for a Fair Isle Christmas Stocking over on my page at About.com and I wanted to make sure you all knew about it, too.

The Fa-La-La Fair Isle Stocking is worked in four colors and uses three little charts to decorate the leg of the stocking. It features and afterthought heel and the heel and toe are shaped the same way and closed off with a three-needle bind off. It’s always nice when you don’t have to do any grafting!

And if you’re a fan of Vickie’s, stay tuned; I’ve got a great giveaway coming next week.

[Photo by Vickie Howell.]

Looking for more Christmas themed Knitting patterns? Check out some of our favorite Knitting patterns on Etsy and

These Christmas Knitting Pattern Books on Amazon

Specific to knitters, you can join our Knitting Patterns Only group to get, well, knitting patterns, ask questions and gain inspiration for what to knit next.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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