The traditions of the Christmas Stocking varies a lot, depending from where you source your information nowadays. The main tradition as a child was to have some 'stocking filler' presents to keep the little ones quiet till it was a more reasonable time for parents to get up.
The stockings, or socks, can now be bought as huge red sacks pretending to be socks to stuff more things in, completely ignoring the original traditions and stories which I think is a shame, we lose so much empathy in the race to go bigger and better. For me as a child, it was one of my own socks hung at the end of the bed. Contents varied little from year to year, a satsuma, a little bag of peanuts and raisens, and coloured crayons which were replaced with a fountain pen as I got older. My brothers got a little car, or lego in theirs, I preferred my pens!
This simple Torchon pattern can be enlarged to be made with thicker crochet thread to give a more solid feel.
If you feel brave enough, use the blank stockings to pop in some spiders, change the ground, make stripes of half stitch and cloth stitch, dot some rosegrounds about.
Ideal for covering in sequins and beads, use coloured and sparkly gimp and edge passive threads, just chuck everything fun at these little stockings.
This prints at A5.
Start by placing 2 pairs open around all the top pins. Half stitch around the pin.
Place a temporary pin just below the top row of pins and hang four pairs of passives open(You may leave these out if you wish). Twist one pair of the passives around a pearl headed pin and push into the pillow. This will maintain the tension as you work the other passive pair. Cloth stitch the two left pairs towards the left side. Do not work the last pair. Repeat on other side.
Each ground pair should have a twist ready for the half stitch ground. Do not twist the passive pairs.
Take one pair from each pin and half stitch, pin, half stitch (Torchon ground) across the next row.
At the edge, use a temp pin and hang one pair on each side. Work hs, pin, hs with the edge pin outside the passive pairs and cloth stitch back through the passives into the ground.
Work the ground and stop before the gimp or passives which will surround the three spiders as shown. (You may leave these out if you wish).
Add four pairs of passives open around a temporary pin at the top of the centre block, cloth stitch through these to the outer pins of the blocks as shown by the coloured line. Place a twist on all ground pairs, not the passives.
If you choose a thicker gimp thread (single thread) add an extra twist before lifting the left hand bobbin, pass the gimp thread between the two ground pairs and place two twists afterwards.
At the final center point where the passives/gimp meet, cross them and work a little way back upwards along the line of the existing passives/gimp. Throw back the pairs for cutting off later when it is easier to tension them after more ground is made.
If you have used two passives, throw back one bobbin at a time to reduce thickness.
The edge passives/gimp make a crossover in the center (doubling the thread) and continue back to the opposite edges to continue down the stocking. One pair on each side will need throwing out where the stocking narrows after the top section, this can be knotted, or carried alongside the passive pairs and thrown out after half inch or so.
If you are working in one colour, throw out the edge passives after working along the crossover. This means you can use the ground pair as the new passives which you would otherwise need to throw out at the bottom of the first section where it narrows.
The heart can be worked either by starting at the top two points, working to the valley pin where one pair will take over as a worker and the other worker becomes the center ground pair, or diagonally from one side where one worker remains constant. The second option is best if you wish to change the colour of the heart ground.
The foot:- add pairs from temporary pins to work the edge pair, through the passive and into the ground.
The heel:- work to the last pin inside the passives, take the pair which is to be thrown out and work it to the edge, hs, pin , hs with the outer worker and the outer worker returns to lay on the inside of the passives. The next pair to be thrown out on the diagonal is worked out to the edge, hs, pin, hs with the outer worker which returns to lay on the inside of the passives and so on. This is the way the bottom edge is also worked.
