More Fun, Colorful Christmas Stocking Patterns to Knit

I recently shared some super retro looking Christmas stocking knitting patterns, but I couldn’t resist sharing a few more. Whether you’re looking for something with a vintage look, something funny or classic, this set of Christmas stocking patterns to knit has got you covered.

Kathleen Horning has a whole set of kind of funny retro look Christmas stockings available on Ravelry. I couldn’t resist sharing two: Santa on a tractor and a golfing Mrs. Claus. These would be great for farmers and golf enthusiasts, of course, but I think they would be funny completely out of context, too. The patterns use worsted weight yarn and are knit flat using the intarsia technique for the colorwork.

Also on Ravelry is Stephanie Miller’s Home Alone inspired stocking, which says “Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animal.” The project uses stranded knitting and is worked in the round from the top down in worsted weight yarn.

I love this stocking covered in Santa faces from The K4 Project. The pattern uses worsted weight yarn and includes instructions for knitting flat and in the round depending on your preference.

If you’re looking for something more classic, I love this design with trees, snowflakes and holly that also happens to be from The K4 Project (they’re a great group that helps animals find forever homes, so worth sharing twice!). This one is also worked in worsted weight yarn and gives you the option of knitting flat on straight needles or in the round.

Need to knit a bunch of stocking or just enjoy a variety of motifs to choose from? Santa’s Sock Central has a pattern that includes 16 different stocking motifs using stranded knitting. There’s everything from Santas and reindeer to snowflakes, gingerbread men, penguins and more. The designs are charted and you can mix and match designs on your stocking (knit in the round in worsted weight yarn).

Need even more Christmas stocking knitting pattern ideas? I’ve got a whole roundup of other Christmas stocking patterns, as well as one that’s all meant to be stockings for pets.

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations.

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind.

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca.

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl.

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions.

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic).

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only.

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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