You didn’t leave an email address for me to respond to your questions. Secondly, I accidentally deleted your comment when poking around (even though I know better) to see if I could find an email address anyway. So, I’m lame. But to answer your questions…

When I knit my first stocking, I was very much a beginner knitter. In fact, it was my first “branch out” project. I had been knitting for 1 1/2 months and I knew how to knit, purl, decrease by knitting two together, and I had worked in the round with double pointed needles. The stocking was my first pattern.

So to answer your question, I absolutely think a new knitter can knit a Christmas stocking. I did not find it difficult, but I did go back to the yarn store several times to find out what some of the pattern lingo meant. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what K2tog was. It was the “tog” part mostly, as I thought it was a word that rhymed with frog, and not an abbreviation.

As far as patterns to suggest, I’d suggest going to a yarn store and having someone there show you a good, simple pattern. I’d choose one that mimics knitting a sock (I think most of them do), so that when you’re done, you’ll also know how to knit socks!

My first pattern was Michele Wyman’s Hugs & Kisses Holiday Stocking and Year Round Socks pattern. I didn’t do the color work in the pattern as the hugs and kisses didn’t appeal to me. My first one was light green, dark green, and a nice red. I used a 16 inch circular needle until I got to the heel and instep parts. Then I used the double pointed needles so I could follow the directions exactly and learn how to do it.

Here is a picture of the stockings I’ve made using that pattern

This one’s my favorite, and it was knit years later, when I was no longer a newbie knitter.

You can see the pattern is quite versatile. But there are a lot out there if this one doesn’t tickle your fancy.

Best wishes, and let me know if I can help.

In other news, WE’RE ON A NEW SERVER!!!! We love LJ. LJ is our hero. LJ is a stud. LJ rocks. If LJ reads this… thank you thank you thank you thank you. Seriously. You’re awesome.

This means I shouldn’t have any more bandwidth trouble. I think he and Nate are looking into getting me off of PMachine also, to help with the nasty and prolific comment spam I’m getting. When that occurs, we will once again All Hail LJ. And there may be some weird transitioning stuff again. But I don’t know when that’s going to happen.