Winter Boughs socks

I have just released my 'Winter Boughs' sock pattern on Ravelry. It originally appeared in issue 161 of The Knitter magazine, where it was called 'Alder'. When I designed the pattern, it was due to be published in the December issue, but things got shifted around and it eventually made it to press in March of this year. Because of the change to the publication date, the magazine changed the name so that it fitted in better with the time of year. But as I always thought of it as a wintry, festive design, I've changed its name back to the original one! Goodness, that was hard to explain!

The design was inspired by forests of pine trees in winter time, with frost and snow sparkling and glittering on the branches. The sock is knitted toe up, with a short row heel and toe. The lace pattern of fir trees goes up the foot and around the leg, with silver beads embellishing the final row of trees, just like flakes of snow. There is a ribbed cuff featuring a picot cast off to represent the tops of the fir trees. It would make the perfect sock to knit in the days leading up to Christmas, or perhaps as a Christmas Eve cast on, or even a sock to take your knitting into 2022. I used a sock set which was created for me especially for this pattern by the talented Sophie who runs Pixie Yarn. I don't know if she has any sock sets dyed up at the moment, but if you get in touch with her, I'm sure that she will be able to dye some. The set is called 'Winter Boughs'. If you prefer to knit from stash, then choose a yarn that's not too busy - a tonal or lightly speckled yarn would work best so that you can see the lacy tree pattern. I used silver beads on my sock, but there's no reason why you can't use brightly coloured beads to represent your Christmas lights! 

The pattern is available from my Ravelry store for £4, but if you use the code 'winter', this gets you 25% off until the end of December. If you are not able to use Ravelry, please get in touch with me by emailing me at josiekitten123 at gmail.com and I will do my best to help you. One of the first things I want to do in 2022 is to find another platform to sell my patterns on as well as on Ravelry.  You can find the pattern here. I hope you like them and if you knit a pair, please do share them with me! As usual, I am donating all the proceeds from my pattern sales to my Fibre4Fibres fundraising page. xxx