Knit Vintage Look Christmas Stockings

I love a good throwback knitting pattern, and in particular I have a soft spot for knit and crocheted Christmas stockings. My grandma knit stockings for her kids, their spouses and their children back in the day, and my mom knit them for all the kids of the next generation. I was also once tasked by a friend to crochet a few stockings for kids to match ones their grandmother had made a long time ago.

Using vintage or vintage inspired patterns for stockings (and other holiday decor, for that matter) is nice because it makes the projects instantly look like they’ve always been there.

Jess Bandelin has a trio of designs to get you started with their Intarsia Christmas Stockings.

These worsted weight stockings are knit flat with a heel flap and are seamed after the knitting is done. This allows you to use the intarisa colorwork knitting technique, where you do each section of color with a separate ball of yarn rather than carrying the yarn across the row or round. These patterns use charts, but they’re pretty easy to read because the image on the chart looks just like what you’re knitting.

(If you’ve never done it before, check out my post on how to knit intarsia.)

The pattern options include an elf in a dress, an elf in trousers and a Christmas tree. I love this one in particular because it uses buttons as the ornaments on the tree, so it’s an easy way to add even more vintage flair. Alternatively you could add beads, embroider on the tree or just leave it plain if that’s more your style.

The elves are also super cute, and the one wearing trousers could easily be transformed into more of a Santa figure if you wanted. They’re done up in holiday colors here on a bright blue background, which is a lot of fun, but you can use any colors you like to make the vintage inspired stockings of your dreams.

Learn more and grab the patterns on Ravelry.

[Photo: Jess Bandelin]

There’s a lot to like about the Eloise Bandana from Katryn Seeburger. This cute little colorwork triangle can be worked as a bandana or kerchief size or a bigger shawlette.

It’s worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn so you can use whatever yarn you have in your stash and just make it as big as you can (since it is worked from the bottom up).

You can see the two sizes from the photo, and also two colorwork options: strawberries and lily of the valley.

But that’s not all the choices you have. In fact, there are 34 different charts you can choose from to knit onto your project. Some of the options include happy faces, a lobster, a pumpkin, a snail and a butterfly. There are cherries, peaches, tomatoes and radishes.

There’s even a blank square you can use to draw your own little design if you want to use something else. Or keep it blank and make it a plain checkerboard design.

And while both of these shawls use the same icons throughout, you could also use different designs throughout if you want. Say a fall version with a bat, pumpkin, leaf and acorn, or a summer beach theme with sailboat, fish, lobster and a bird? I keep suggesting four different icons because the larger size has four rows of squares, but the smaller has three, so you could do stripes of the same icon or alternate a couple of different ones, whatever you like.

Look through the finished projects on the Ravelry project page to see lots of different options, from rows to individual icons. There are also some projects that are smaller than the suggested size to make a smaller bandana. You could also keep going a make a bigger shawl working increases in the same way as you have been going.

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Katryn Seeburger]

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