The Star gives back. For each day until December 25 we are giving a little gift to you, our readers. Today, Star sports designer and knitting extraordinaire Irene McKisson is sharing a pattern she created for a Tucson-themed stocking. When you finish your piece, Irene invites you to share your handiwork at her knitting blog go.azstarnet.com/designerknits.
(Click the image to the right to download a PDF template of the pattern).
Knitters train for holiday knitting all year long. We make giant woolly sweaters in the middle of July, when the wool sticks to our fingers like half-eaten cotton candy. We make warm hats and scarves when it is 117 degrees in Tucson and wearing any of our knitted projects would result in heat stroke.
We do these things so that when October rolls around, we are ready — ready to knit 15 pairs of socks for every cousin, mother-in-law and honorary uncle in our families.
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We train in the heat so when it cools down to 90 degrees, our fingers will be nimble enough to turn out a sweater for Grandpa Ralph with the gorilla arms, or that floor-length knitted dress Great-Aunt Roxy has always wanted.
Holiday knitting is what we live for. In that spirit I — with the help of the Star's vaunted editorial cartoonist David Fitzsimmons — have created a Christmas stocking pattern to add to your already-overflowing list of things to knit this season.
In the span of a week, Fitzsimmons learned the following things about knitters: We aren't all old ladies, we carry sharp pointy sticks and knitter's graph paper holds endless possibilities.
Fitz the cartoonist drew a lovely Tucson scene, and the chart is stunning. But when I realized it was 90 rows tall and included 13 different colors, I wanted to cry a little. But mostly I wanted to run out and buy 13 different colors of yarn. After all, I trained all summer for situations like this one.
So I bought yarn in green, sky, lilac, black, white, twig, ash, fog, red, apricot, yellow, fawn and orange. Then I reminded myself that black and white don't really count as colors and that made me feel better.
So, I offer this pattern to you, dear knitters, as a gift that will surely test your strength as a knitter and will bring you joy every holiday season when you look at it and remember that it's a stocking, not a sock. So you don't have to knit a pair.
Good luck and happy knitting.
