Norwegian Christmas Stocking

I decided to knit a Christmas stocking for my son. It was kind of spur of the moment. I got interested in Norwegian knitting about four years ago and have made a couple stranded projects. I joined a Norwegian Sweater Knit Along and was reading up. More about that later, I'm planning a Fana cardigan.

I had red, white and black Cascade 220 left over from a test project felting stranded patterns.

The charts and inspiration come from "Everyday Knitting: Treasures from a Rag Pile", "Knitting in the Nordic Tradition", and "Traditional Scandinavian Knitting". I planned on making it just like a sock, but when I got to the toe shaping I decided to move the decreases so that the foot would lie flat, like a Christmas stocking.

As it progressed, I was happy with the way each section looked. I was a bit concerned that the checkerboard was going to pucker, some of my floats were too short. I thought the heel was too big. And I didn't like the transition from heel to foot. I wish I hadn't decreased along the bottom.

When I got it off the needles, I was even less happy. The ribbing should have been taller; the checkerboard was out of scale and puckered; the name was too close to the edges; the hearts didn't show; and even my husband said the foot looked weird. He's the one who talked me out of ripping back to the heel when I got done with the stars! But then he said, as a complement, that it looked like a sock, a giant's sock. Great.

Here it is pre-blocking:


I decided to cross my fingers and full it a bit to see if the puckering would go away. I put it in the sink with hot water and dish soap; agitated and rubbed it together a bit. It shrank just a little, but a lot of the flaws disappeared diminished. I was happy that the hearts "popped". I blocked it, forcing the name to the front, and pulling out a bit of the funky foot decreases.


Here it is hanging up. It is pretty rustic, but that's okay, I have come to like it quite a bit.