Stocking

A Christmas Fable. Not.

My son is bringing his husband-to-be to this year’s holiday celebration, traveling from California to Michigan to spend precious days with our extended family - my siblings and their children and even a representative from the 3rd living generation, a 9-month-old girlie who survived a serious birth defect and is now fine and sassy.

I can’t wait! We’ve met our future son-in-law before, several times, but it’s his first Gander Christmas experience, and I want him to feel welcome. I bought warm slippers for both men, knowing that Michigan winters bring chilly feet; the slippers wait, gift-wrapped, on their nightstand.

I also knitted a new Christmas stocking for our prospective son-in-law, and in doing so I realized how shabby the rest of our stockings are. I determined that we need a refresh of the stocking situation - four total.

I decided that stocking #2 would be for me, because I never did knit my own foot-shaped gift holder. “Now’s the time,” I decided, “to honor and treat myself with a beautiful handmade stocking.”

That’s what I decided, all right.

I found a stunning pattern - free! I hopped on over to my LYS and bought a few skeins of Plymouth Encore¹ - light blue, navy, and a sparkly white - and got to work.

Can you relate?

Okay. You know how you find the perfect recipe, and you decide to cook it for family or friends so that you can break bread together over steaming plates of savory, sumptuous goodness, talking and laughing in the glow of candles while light classical music plays softly in the background?

And you know how you realize that you don’t have any clean dishcloths and you’re out of paper towels? But it’s ok, because you can use old washcloths that are typically for the bathroom, but at least they’re clean? And then you find yourself on your knees digging through the deepest recesses of your bottom cabinets looking for the only baking dish that will work with this particular cut of meat?

And then you drop the meat on the floor when you take it out of the fridge where it’s been marinating, so you have to run to the store - or send said partner to the store - and then clean the meat juices from the floor? And then when you’ve finally got the replacement roast, you have to use a hammer to tenderize it because there’s no time to marinate again, and you can’t find the thingie you use to tenderize by pounding the meat, and then as you’re searing it, the smoke alarms go off as the guests pull in?

That dinner is fighting you, every step of the way.

As it happens, the evening turns out beautifully - music, candles. conversation. Behind the closed kitchen door the dust is still settling from your messy, frantic preparation, spilled liquids on the counter, sink piled high with dirty dishes, and maybe there’s some broken glass. So, everyone eats the roast, but every bite, for you, is just chewing until you can swallow. All you taste is effort and failed attempts. You’re a little sweaty and sticky.

That’s this stocking.

Knitting as Battle

I fought the yarn and needles with every stitch, mainly due to the large-ish number of stitches on a 16-inch circular needle - or possibly due to the pattern’s instructions to knit with a size six needle using worsted weight yarn - or it could be that I was using a wood, not metal or bamboo needle, so the stitches had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, down the length of the needle and coaxed to jump off with every stitch.

After I got through what felt like ten feet of stranded colorwork, I was puzzled by the sudden, unexplained decrease in the number of stitches, but still knitted the heel flap from the fun, sparkly white yarn. I turned the heel and picked up stitches, still wondering why my count was different than the count in the pattern even as I knitted three more rounds -

And then I held the chart up at an angle that I hadn’t used before, and saw that I should have decreased twice, two rows before the heel flap.

Thwack! The roast hits the floor.

Because the color contrast isn’t great on this chart and because I was working from a hardcopy printed on paper with a sheen, glare hid those decrease symbols. It’s not the designer’s fault; it was just messy and irritating.

I ripped back to the decrease point and re-knit, and it didn’t really take that long. I was still fighting the yarn and the needles, but I got through it. My pattern is still off near the heel, but I don’t care.

Grafting the toe closed was unpleasant; I’ve done the Kitchener stitch many times, but at this point I was so exhausted I couldn’t follow. I undid that graft at least twice to redo it.

And now I have a stocking.

This is the good side. That purl row at the beginning of the tow - why? It’s in the pattern -doesn’t make sense, but I wasn’t going to rip out anything more.

Just as I wouldn’t have enjoyed that hammer-pounded last-minute roast, I don’t really enjoy the stocking. It’s stiff, my tension is often too tight as a result of my battle with the yarn and needles, and all I see when I look at is it the struggle.

I do have to say, I enjoyed that band up at the top more than anything else; I was in awe as I watched the pattern take shape. That’s funny, because I can barely see that band in the pattern photos.

I bet I’ll love the rest of the stocking tomorrow. I hope so.

Here’s the first, ‘welcome to the family’ stocking. It’s shaped like an actual leg, which I did not do on purpose. I used this pattern. I’ll be personalizing it later in that blank band at the top.

I have two stockings to go. They will not be knitted from Plymouth Encore on size 6 needles.

1. It’s not my favorite yarn, but it’s a known entity, it’s inexpensive, and perfect for a project that won’t be worn against the skin.