It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas...

...at least it is on my knitting table.

This year, I decided it was time to knit stockings for the family. I resisted doing it before as I remember my brothers having hand knit stockings that dragged allllll the way to the floor the second Santa dropped an apple into the toe. As cute as those stockings were at first blush, they weren't so pretty all stretched out like that and good ol' Santa had to invest a lot more into filling those things too!

I tried making stockings for the girls out of felt one year but they weren't very sturdy and had absolutely no give in them. After that I bought stockings for them but I didn't like those much either. So, this year, Daniel is here and we feel like we are done adding little people to the family. I thought that made it a good time to make some good-looking stockings for the kids to have for as long as they last (I'll make one for DH and I if I get time). I decided to try stranded knitting, thinking that that sort of fabric might stretch less than regular knitting.

This is Daniel's stocking, hot off the needles (unblocked):






I made it from 5 shades of Cascade 220 wool and the pattern is in my head. Carolyn from the yarn store is already making rumblings about how I should write up the pattern and I might do that once I get another one done and make sure I know what I'm doing.