Handmade Holidays Part 1 – Create Your Own Christmas Stocking

Knitting your own Christmas Stockings puts you in a happy place. Besides, look at the perks, they don’t really have to fit, there doesn’t have to be the dreaded “second sock syndrome”, you can make them with huge needles and yarn, and, if you knit them in the round, there’s practically no finishing.

There is some prep, however. Is it decoration? Is it to be useful? Will some “allergic to wool” little elf be sticking his paw inside to discover the contents?

Plan your stocking to suit you. Heirloom or modern. Plain stripes or color work. And what about the colors? Christmas doesn’t have to be all red, green and white. Knit with whatever colors you want. Brights, pastels, muted heathers, it’s your stocking, knit it the way you want it.

Choose from several types of tops. A common top would be a k1, p1 rib for however long you want it. The legs are basically an empty canvas. Fill them with anything from fair isle designs to snowflakes and santas. Go ethnic, or use cables or even lace. Even knit in your name, we wouldn’t want Santa getting all confused. Confused Santa’s are not a good thing, we like to keep them happy and on track.

For the heel, use a standard heel flap and you should be good to go. Think about a different color for the heel and toe. Shape the toe as you would the top of the mitten with decreases and a Kitchener stitch at the end. Now comes the fun part.

Sequins, bells, beads and bling, you name it, it has a place on your stocking. Have some fun fur yarn? Why not give Santa a real fur hat? Embroider fun things, use unique embellishments. It’s your stocking. Make it original, make it a work of art. Make it designer!

To finish it off, gently steam, knit up an icord for the loop and hang it by the fireplace. But, you’re still not done. Don’t forget the cookies and milk, it’s all about keeping Santa happy!

Patty Lyons is known for teaching knitters the how and the why of knitting skills. Her Knitting Bag of Tricks helped knitters learn how stitches work, why we do things the way we do and what might be better alternatives.

Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER aims to do the same with a particular focus on fixing mistakes in your knitting both before and after you bind off. She has deliberately made mistakes (and tons of accidental ones as well) to teach herself the best methods for fixing everything from a misplaced increase and a dropped edge stitch to faulty cable turns, messed up lace and brioche knitting disasters, to name a few.

The book starts with a foundation of understanding how stitches work, how to read them, and the basic methods we use for fixing mistakes in knitting: frogging (ripping out several rows at a time), tinking (removing stitches across a row one stitch at a time) and dropping a stitch or several stitches on purpose to fix a mistake and ladder it back up.

It talks about the most basic mistakes like accidental yarn overs and slipped stitches and how to fix them, as well as tips for using lifelines or slipping a smaller needle into your project to hold the stitches before you rip.

Then we move on to more complicated fixes like picking up a dropped edge stitch, fixing a dropped cast on stitch, removing the twist from a circular knitting project (which you can only do after the first round is knit; this is an ER not a miracle station), fixing ladders in a project, tinking when you’re worked increases or decreases (or what to do when you forgot to add them) and fixing dropped stitches at the edges or short rows.

After that is the specialist’s office, which covers fix-it techniques you might not ever need, or only rarely, but it’s nice to have a place you can find the solution if you ever do need it. We’re talking fixing mistakes in a lace pattern, dealing with miscrossed cables (and counting rows in the cable so you when when it’s the right time to work it again), colorwork issues and brioche blunders. Some of these diagrams are sure to give you pause if you’ve never done something like dropping down a single cable for 20 rows and reknitting it, but again, it’s nice to know you can do those things if you need to.

Even if your project is done it’s not too late for the doctor to do some good. You’ll also learn how to use duplicate stitch to make knit and purl stitches on the surface of a knitting project, which allows you to do things like fake a decrease you forgot, add a purl you missed in a textured stitch pattern, even fix mistakes in lace, stranded knitting, brioche and cables.

There’s also tips for dealing with too tight cast ons and bind offs and floppy necklines, pieces knit too long or too short and very detailed instructions for grafting in probably any situation you might encounter, as well as approaches to major surgery.

A lot in these later chapters is kind of mind blowing, and if you’re not getting it from drawings, there are QR codes to videos that cover a lot of the problems and allow you to see the fixes in another way. And there are cute illustrations on the theme of knitting ER from Franklin Habit, too!

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to fix mistakes, minor or major, without having to rip out all of your knitting, this is the book you’ll want to have on your shelf for ready reference and reassurance throughout your knitting career.

About the book: 208 pages, paperback, published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.

Have you read?