Last year I knitted little mini Santa hats to put on the top of champagne bottles for Florence to give her teachers at the end of term before Christmas. It was a little project for me as a new knitter and I made my own pattern up for the first time which involved increasing and decreasing. I think they looked rather effective in the end and the teachers seemed appreciative of my efforts – useless although the item actually was.

This year I’ve been knitting mini Christmas stockings to hang over the bottles and I will fill them with chocolates. You can also use these mini stickings as Christmas tree decorations, small Christmas favours, something to put the knives and forks in on the Christmas dinner table and anything else you can think of. I’m also knittng 24 to string and hang like bunting as a home made advent calendar which can be filled with little gifts or sweets.

I spent ages perfecting the knitting pattern because I wanted them to have perfectly shaped heels and be just the right size. I looked at other people’s patterns but nothing quite made the perfect mini stocking; lots of them had sloppy techniques for the shaping which created holes and nothing was quite the right size for what I wanted. I decided to create my own pattern and thought I’d share it here. Hope that you like the basic pattern and enjoy creating embellishments for them if you fancy them decorated.

You will need:

4mm knitting needles, red yarn, white yarn and a darning needle.

Stiches and techniques:

Casting on, one stitch rib (knit a stitch/pearl a stitch), stocking stitch (knit a row/pearl a row), wrap and turn, adding a new colour, knitting two together, pearling two together and binding off (I haven’t made any tutorials myself but there are lots of great ones on YouTube!)

Method:

Cast on 20 stictches with white yarn.

The cuff:

Starting with a knit stitch on every row, use one stitch rib (knit a stitch/pearl a stitch) to knit 7 rows.

For the 8th row, knit a whole row.

For the 9th row, pearl a whole row.

These two rows will be where you later turn down the cuff and will make it sit much more flatly.

Knitting the leg:

Change colours by working in the red yarn on the next row which is a knit row.

Continue with a pearl row/knit row rotation (stocking stictch) for 15 more rows (16 rows in total including the working in of the red yarn row).

Starting with a knit row begin the heel shaping as follows:

K12, wrap and turn. P4 wrap and turn. K6 wrap and turn. P8 wrap and turn. K10 wrap and turn. P12 wrap and turn. K14 wrap and turn. P16 wrap and turn. Knit to end.

The toe:

Starting with a pearl row continue to use stocking stitch for the next 8 rows.

To finish:

Pearl two together leaving 10 stitches.

Knit two together leaving 5 stitches.

Thread the yarn through the stitches, pull together and sew up on the wrong side before turning inside out.

Et voila!