How Not To Knit A Stocking

...Or at least how to fix mistakes, once you've made them.

I’ve been working on a Christmas stocking for Bre, along with some other things for Christmas gifts for other people. It’s the Beaded Beauty Stocking from Terry Morris. Terry had offered this stocking as part of the Holiday Mystery Gifts group on Yahoo, but I had never had a reason to knit it before.

R, M, & T all have these 3-foot monsters stockings:

And, remember, I knit one for my little bro a few years ago. The Aran Christmas Stocking from one of the Pattern-A-Day Calendars.

However, this year, I’m knitting for Bre, who is R’s gf of almost 2 years. I know what you’re thinking… Patwoman, you hate to knit socks. And a stocking is just a big sock. And you’d be right. But, somehow, it’s different with a Christmas stocking. It just is.

This is a really nice pattern. Very elegant. Of course, I’ve changed things a bit, to suit my own needs. For one thing, I can’t get those small beads to go over the worsted weight yarn I’m using. So I’m using larger beads. In green and red, instead of the gold and red the pattern calls for. I think this gives it a more playful look, rather than elegant.

Also, I’ve deleted the loops of beads around the top. They just don’t look right with the larger beads. But, I also feel like loops of beads are just crying out to be snagged on something. And, of course, I’m knitting this magic-loop style, because I think there are just enough stitches on this thing to make me sorry for knitting it with dpns.

I was not very far along into the pattern, however, when I noticed my first mistake. Can you see it?

Yep. I purled when I should have knitted. The crazy thing is, I had to slip a marker at the point that I changed from purl to knit stitches. I had to slip a marker. That was my clue to stop purling and start knitting. So why did I keep purling for 8 or so stitches? And then, suddenly start knitting, but not notice that I had done the last several stitches wrong?

Argh.

And, naturally, that’s not something you would notice right away. No. You’ve got to knit several rows after the mistake before you actually see it. Now what? Well, I could rip out 7 or 8 rows to get back to the mistake and then knit it correctly.

Yeah right.

Or I could just drop these stitches one at a time and ladder them back to the mistake. Then, use a crochet hook to “knit” them properly.

And viola! Good as new!

This is a good method, if you’ve purled instead of knitted or knitted instead of purled. It gets a little trickier when you get into decreases, increases, yo’s, and the like. Although, it can be done. I’ve done it.

And I made up some pretty nifty swear words in the process!