Nick's Stocking
Okay, either this Christmas stocking was finished about a month late or almost a year early, depending on how you choose to look at it.
What appears almost like red piping around the top edge was created by doing a long-tail cast-on with two different colors of yarn. Instead of measuring out a length for your long tail, you just knot the two strands of yarn together and hold this knot against the underside of the needle in your right hand. Then run the contrasting color (in my case, red) over the thumb and the main color over the index finger of your left hand. Once you're done casting on stitches, drop the contrasting yarn and work with the main color. You can also use this method with two different skeins of the same yarn in a large project where you don't want to worry about whether or not you're going to run out of tail before you have enough stitches cast on. You will have two extra tails to hide later though.
The body of the stocking starts with about an inch of garter stitch to prevent the top from rolling. Then I knit a long tube of stockinette stitch, only pausing to work in some waste yarn to mark the spot for the heel. I closed the tube with a standard toe before going back to complete the after-thought heel.
Finally, both the hanging loop and the name are crochet chains which I sewed in place.
To tell you the truth...I'd been meaning to post a comment for so many a
time that I've been looking/reading this entry for the past couple of days.
But for some reason, I keep trailing off...and ended up not knowing what to
write...like right now.
It was finished very, very early. Yes indeed! And it's adorable, too.
Thanks for the explanation of the cast-on -- I'm always terrified I'll run
out of tail, especially on big projects!