in this tutorial, we're going to learn tomake a felted christmas stocking, and we can cut away to a photo here. you'll see there, i've got a solid one anda striped one. and if you're not familiar with felting, it'sa way of knitting something up big in wool and then deliberately shrinking it down sothat it makes this really sturdy, thick fabric without stitch definition. if you'd like to get your copy of the patternto follow along, just click the little "i" in the upper right-hand corner. that'll take you to my website.
and you saw the examples there of the solidone and the striped one. i've also got one here. i knit this one up in gryffindor colors, thinkingof sports teams. so i knit my favorite quidditch team. but you can use, of course, any sports colors. the only requirement with this yarn is thatit's 100% wool. wool is what you need for the best felting. you can use a wool and another animal fiberblend but you really need to stay away from any synthetics or any acrylics.
it needs to be 100% animal fiber. i use bulky yarn and, of course, all the detailsfor everything is on my website. i use bulky yarn but you can also use a worstedweight yarn held double-stranded to get the same gauge. anyway, we're going to cover knitting thestripes and german short rows and correcting the color change jog and a few other things. i would put this pattern at advanced beginnerlevel. if you're confident with both knitting andpurling, i'm going to show you everything else.
and i do have the stocking here before it'sfelted. it is absolutely huge, you can see. it looks like a lot of knitting but becauseit's bulky yarn and big needles, it ends up knitting up pretty quickly. i'd say it's a good weekend project. anyway we're going to get started with thecast on and working the stripes. coming up next. if you have your pattern and your yarn andyou're ready to get started, i have it all set up here.
we're ready to get started with the cast on. so let's take a look. i'm doing an abbreviated version here. this pattern calls for 24-inch circulars andi'm using 16-inch circulars. and i am just finishing up my cast on, justan ordinary cast on. i'm going to join this in the round and i'lljust go run over this real quickly here in case you haven't knit in the round before. i have all of my stitches arranged so thatthe knots are on the inside of the cord, all on the same side and nothing's twisted.
i have my working yarn over here on the right-handneedle. i'm going to pick that up and place a markeron the right needle and then just start knitting. and put the marker back on and start knitting. and that's how we're going to join in theround. and you'll knit the cuff. you can change color or knot as many timesas you want. in both the striped version and the solid,i have the cuff knit in a different color. i'll show you. here's the felted fabric.
you can see the stitch definition is goneand this is really sturdy. and the reason i was excited to make a feltedchristmas stocking is i have another christmas stocking pattern that's just straight knitand it looks great. but unless you'd line it with fabric, theknit fabric stretches out when it's full of stuff. this will actually hang rigid no matter howmuch weight you put in the stocking. so anyway, that's not why i pulled this into the frame. we have the cuff and then if you're goingto do stripes, you're going to change color after that with a couple of different colors.
or you can do the cuff and then do the topof the cuff and then the rest the cuff in one solid color. so i have the cuff finished here and i'm ready to change color. and i want to show you how to correct thecolor change jog. when you're knitting in the round, you'reessentially knitting a big spiral. and when you change color, you end up witha stair stepoe look to the color change. and the color changes in this stocking areall at the back of...well, let me pull this back in.
all the color changes are back here, at theback of the leg, i guess you'd say. so it's in an inconspicuous spot but we dowant to make sure that the stripes all end up clean without a color change jog. and that's what i'm going to cover right now. enough talking. let's cover this. so i'm going to knit up to my marker. i'm ready to attach a new color. so i put my needle in that stitch, grab thenew color.
i'm going to fold it over, leaving about asix-inch tail, wrap the back needle and pull that through. and the new yarn is attached. so i'm just going to knit with the new yarn. and this is what you're going to do everytime you change color in the stocking. and it's something you can do when you changecolor, when you're knitting in the round, anytime you're working stripes or a colorchange. you have to be patient with me for a minutewhile i get all the way around. and, again, this is an abbreviated stocking.
the real stocking is bigger than what i havecast on here but the techniques are the same. okay, i'm back up to the marker again andthis is where the real action happens. my stitch markers' caught up in that stitch. okay, you change to the new color. you knit all the way around in the new color. and this is how you correct the stair steppejog. on the first stitch of the second round inthe new color, you look down at the stitch below, the stitch that's on the needle. the stitch below will be in the old color.
you put your needle under the right leg ofthat stitch. if the stitch is a v, the right leg is overhere. put that up on the needle with the stitchon the needle and then knit those two together. i'm going to show you that again. i'm on the first stitch of the second round. i grab the right leg of the stitch below thecurrent stitch. it's in the old color. put it up on the needle with the stitch that'son the needle. and then knit those two together and that'sit.
the rest of the round is knit normally andyou'll do that on the second row of each color change. okay, now i'm going to cover a little bitof the german short row here. and even if you've worked my german shortrow socks before, you're familiar with the german short row technique, there's somethinga little bit different here that i want to cover. and that's...obviously, in this piece, i'mnot ready to start the heel. we're going to pretend i've knit the wholecuff and i'm ready to start the heel here. i'm at the marker and because the marker isat the very back of the stocking, we're going
to knit half of the heel and then come backand knit the other half and then combine it all together because we want all the colorchanges to happen right in the center. that's the only thing that's different andit's all spelled out in the pattern. so i'm going to attach it and then followthe pattern to knit the number of stitches for this heel. and then doing the german short row, i knitup to where i need to be. i turn the work. and on the purl side, i slip the stitch fromthe left to the right needle, pull up on that stitch and yarn forward, and then purl.
i'll show you this again, don't worry. and now this is an interesting thing herebecause, essentially, i'm on the second round in this new color and i need to do the colorjog correction on this stitch, right? and this is what i'm going to do. i'm going to slip that stitch from the leftto the right needle, grab the right leg of the stitch below just like i did on the knitside, but i'm on the purl side this time. i'm splitting the stitch but i need to getthat up on the needle, slip those two stitches back over and now purl those two stitches together. it's not essential that you do this but ijust work the color correction jog on the
wrong side of the work and that's it. and now i'm going to knit. purl the other half of the heel to get thesestitches incorporated. turn the work. okay, so now i have all of the heel stitchesare in the gray color, in the other color, i'm ready to go and i'm just going to keepworking german short rows. i'm going to pull the yarn forward. this is the knit side. slip that stitch from the left needle to theright, pull up on the yarn, and it creates
this funny double stitch. and then knit across to the next stitch. and, again, i'm doing a dinky little versionhere but the techniques are what's important. so i knit up to the next one, turn the work. this is the purl side. i'll slip that stitch, pull up on it to createa double stitch, yarn forward and then purl to the next stitch. turn the work, yarn forward, slip that stitch,pull up on it and then knit to the next stitch. so that's how you work the first half of theheel.
and then the second half of the heel, it'sreally similar. the pattern will tell you to knit the firstdouble stitch together. knit the second double stitch together. well, actually, we'll have more wrap stitchesthan that. you'll knit the first one the pattern tellsyou and the second one, but you'll have more than two. and then you work a german short row on thatfirst stitch. i'll show you on the other side. i'm afraid that what i just said was confusing.
you'll have more wraps and turns or more germanshort rows worked than what i have here because i'm only doing two wraps on each side. i'm going to purl two together, purl the nexttwo together, turn the work, and then work the german short row technique on that stitch. the german short row is a way of turning thework without leaving an enormous hole in the work and it gives us shaping in the knitting. so you'll follow the pattern. that's the technique used. follow the pattern.
you're going to work that over and over againuntil the entire heel is shaped. and then what's a little bit different fromother short row sock patterns or other german short row sock patterns that i have is you'regoing to knit all the way across and then knit back to the marker before you changecolor. and just like we started here going this way,we're going to end going this way up to the marker. and i spell all that out in the pattern, row-by-rowinstructions. that is the whole technique you're going toknit the cuff which is very simple, the german short row heel, the foot of the stocking.
and then the last part is, the toe is justa simple decrease pattern. it's not german short rows. i actually tried german short rows when iwas designing this and i found that while a german short row heel is great in socks,it was a boxy toe and when the stocking was hanging, it wouldn't lie flat against thewall. it was this boxy toe. anyway, so i modified that and made it justa simple knit two together, decrease pattern all the way around. and yes, that's it.
next up, we're going to make the i-cord strapand talk about felting. when you finish knitting the entire foot ofthe stocking, we're ready to work on the strap for it and you're going to attach the strapbefore felting so everything felts all together. it's just a simple i-cord strap and i'm goingto show you how to work that, so let's go and take a look. here is the finished stocking and here's thestrap. and it's just i-cord attached down. because it's felted, you don't have to besuper perfect with your stitching. but you do want to make sure that it's securedpretty far into the stocking.
i have designed these to basically hold lead. you could fill these with anything. these are the strongest stockings in the worldbut that's what we're going to make right now. excuse me. i'll get to that in a moment. so you want your yarn...and the yarn thati used, let me pull this back. i matched the top of the cuff with the samecolor but you don't have to. you can use a different color from the stockingif you like, leaving yourself a decent tail,
because we're going to use that tail for seeming. cast on four stitches on a double pointedneedle. and it has to be a double pointed needle becauseof the way this technique works. you cast on and normally you'd turn the worknow. but instead we're going to slide it to theother end of the double-pointed needle so the working yarn is actually coming from thewrong side of the work. and then knit across. okay, again, normally you'd turn the workhere but we're going to slide it over to the other side so the working yarn is coming fromthe last stitch, and knit across.
if you've never worked this before, it's prettyamazing how this ends up looking when it's finished. okay, again, slide it. that is it. that is the technique for i-cord and thisis a four stitch i cord. you'll see i cord and other patterns writtenwith more or fewer stitches. and after you've knit a little bit, you cango ahead and pull on the tail end. and you'll see the whole thing closes up onitself and it does make this cord that's knitted so in this pattern, you're going to do thatfor eight inches, i believe.
and i have one here that's ready to go. i'm just ready to bind this one off and it'sjust a normal bind-off. i'm going to knit two, pull one stitch overthe other and break the yarn and pull the last end through. my yarn was already cut. okay, so now i have this and i'm ready toattach it. i'm going to get my tapestry needle. i'm ready to attach it to the inside of thestocking. this is my big unfelted stocking and i'm goingto attach it here.
i'm doing in a different color. i just said that i'd do it in the same color. i'm doing this one in a different color. so you'll be able to find the very back ofyour stocking because it's all of the places that you have changed yarn color. the first thing i'm going to do is to foldthis over, thread one of the ends onto a tapestry needle and stitch the two halves together. and because this is on the inside of the stockingand it's going to be felted, it is an essentialthat it's perfect stitching.
you want to keep it tidy. but you don't have to get too wrapped up andspending a lot of time on this part. so i've stitched it together at the bottom. and now i'm going to place it inside the stockingand thread the other end onto the tapestry needle and then stitch it down here. and since i am using a different color, i'mgoing to be careful to just grab the back loop of the stitch and not go all the waythrough the fabric. if i was using the same color, i wouldn'thave to be so careful about it. okay, so you notice that i attached it allthe way down the entire length of the top
color and i will attach it all the way downthe other side and then cut the threads short. and with felting, because this is all felted,i have a knot here when i change color. i can just cut those short. i don't really have to spend a lot of timeweaving things in because they are not going to come unravelled when they're felted. everything's going to be fine when once allof the stitches are felted together. i couldn't think of another word other thanfelted together. anyway, a little bit about felting, you wantto put the stocking or multiple stockings. if you're making a bunch of them, you probablywant to wash them all at the same time or
felt them all at the same time so that theyend up being the same size when they're finished. or you can just keep careful notes of exactlyhow long you felted it. when i'm doing this, i put the stocking intoa lingerie bag or a zippered pillowcase because it is going to throw little bits of wool andit's easier to clean out the inside of a lingerie bag instead of the entire washing machine. and i turned the water on too hot and letit run for a minute, making sure the water is really hot, and then spin that water outand then fill it for a small hot wash using a little bit of wool soap. i also throw an old towel or an old pair ofjeans in there with the stocking to help rough
it up and help the felting process happen. and then you want to check it about everyfive minutes. just off the top of my head, i can't exactlyremember how long i felted mine. it's in the pattern though for sure. you want to be careful not to burn your handswhen you're checking it. so my technique for that is barbecue tongs. i use barbecue tongs to pull out the lingeriebag and let it drip and then take a peek inside, see just how much it's felted. and the main thing you're looking for is thestitch definition to go away.
you don't want to be able to see the knitstitches anymore, and then beyond that you want to see the exact size that you have. so i also can't keep yardstick when i'm felting. i keep a yardstick next to the washer so ican measure and see exactly how big, how small the knitting is getting in the hot wash. anyway, that is everything, i think, all thetechniques used on this stocking. again, just click the little "i" in the upperright-hand corner to get your pattern and for links to everything that i've shown herein the video. good luck.