In what has become a tradition almost as eagerly as awaited as the Christmas TV programmes schedule, the WYS Christmas sock yarn for 2022 has been released!  Hooray!  West Yorkshire Spinners have been producing a special Christmas yarn since 2016 and every year, I wonder how they are going to come up with something as amazing as the previous year’s yarn – and every year, they do!

There have been stripy yarns, sparkly yarns, and one where the colours of a Winter’s night sky blended together … oh, the thought that goes into these yarns and the care and attention to keeping this yarny tradition going … it’s no wonder WYS are my favourite yarn company!  You can read about last year’s colour here, and the previous years’ colours here.

Enough of this, though – you want to know about this year’s colour!  And here it is …

Gingerbread!

 

Isn’t it lovely?  It’s the perfect gingerbread colour and it’s got Christmassy red, green and white in there too.  It’s almost good enough to eat!

West Yorkshire Spinners have definitely got some kind of magic going in their dye house and they create amazing stripes!  I think stripy yarns are the best sort of yarns to knit – perfect for pulling you along as you work “just one more colour”, and Gingerbread is no different.

The yarn comes in 100g balls and is available worldwide from WYS stockists.  They have updated their website and they’ve got a nifty stockists search page now which you can find here.

Oh wait – you want to see what it looks like knitted up?  Well, of course you do … and so did I!  I was so happy to be asked to design a sock pattern for the Christmas yarn again this year and this is how the yarn looks when it’s knitted …

I can’t get enough of those delicious stripes of gingerbread-y loveliness!  This yarn is similar to Fairy Lights and Robin in that there’s a speckled stripe between the solid stripes, but the difference ends there as there are fewer colours, making them all the more effective.  The overall feel is more muted after some of the bright shades but still cosy and homely and very definitely Christmas!

There are no prizes for spotting that there are four pairs of socks hanging over the fireplace which means that there are four knitted sock patterns to choose from this year.  FOUR!!  “We want the whole family to be able to wear socks this year,” WYS told me.  “We want there to be something for everyone, from tiny toes to the biggest feet, and for all kinds of occasions too!”

Wow – that was quite a brief, but it meant that I could really exercise my imagination with the designs and I loved that!  I thought long and hard about what patterns could work for all kinds of occasions and still be easy enough for everyone to knit because you know I’m all about patterns for everyone to have a go at!  I hope you’ll like what I’ve come up with!

The patterns are (from left to right) Hansel, a chunky mock cable boot sock with the yarn held double, perfect for cosy toes; Gretel, a colourwork sock incorporating motifs between the Gingerbread stripes; Rudy, a simple textured sock and Buddy, baby socks for the tiniest people on your Christmas list.

I’ve written these patterns in lots of sizes so that there really is a pair for everyone.  The Buddy socks are written for three sizes and Hansel, Gretel and Rudy are written for eight sizes from child to adult so that everyone can choose the pair they like best!

Best of all, each of these patterns are FREE this year – such a generous gift from West Yorkshire Spinners and one that will mean that socks can be high on the Christmas list for every member of the family!  You can find all of the patterns as PDF downloads on the WYS website here and I’ll tell you a bit more about each of them and link the patterns again below.

All of the patterns are cuff down socks based on my Basic 4ply Socks pattern so if you’re new to socks or need a refresher, you can use the Sockalong tutorials to help you.  (If you’re an experienced toe up knitter, you may well find that you can incorporate the patterns into your socks so it’s definitely worth a go if you like them, but as I’m strictly a cuff down girl, I won’t be able to help you!)

Are you ready for some festive socky-ness?  Here we go!

 

Hansel

This handsome pair of chunky boot socks features a mock cable that is easy to get the hang of and will make your gift knitting quicker too – no cable needles to wrestle with here!  Chunky boot socks, did I hear you ask?  In Signature 4ply?  Yes, you’re absolutely right!  You’re going to love this as it makes the socks a quick knit … the yarn is held double to make thicker socks which makes these ideal for welly socks, boot socks, general outdoors (or maybe indoors given the heating crisis!).  Clever, eh?

You need to split the ball (or use two balls) and find the stripe match but then, once you start knitting, the stripe colours will stay matched and voilà, a pair of chunky boot socks!  It’s super-easy to match the stripes with this yarn so you won’t need any extra tutorials, but if you decide to split a ball of yarn, do make sure that you are pulling the yarn end from the same direction!

The heel flap is my Ribbed Heel Flap which makes the flap a little bit more stretchy – ideal for feet that don’t usually suit heel flaps and definitely the one to use for a thicker boot sock.

Here’s a close up photo of the mock cable …

You can see that it’s not a true cable but it looks very effective and I like the way that it breaks the yarn colours up in places.

Oh, I must tell you because I know this will be something that will bother some people … when you knit with the yarns held together, the colours in the yarns won’t match to the exact stitch.  Sometimes they will but sometimes they will be out by a couple of stitches.  You won’t notice when the sock is finished but you will when you’re knitting so don’t worry that it’s not going to look right.  It’s something that can’t be helped – the dyeing process is accurate to within a few stitches of each stripe but you don’t usually notice when you’re knitting with one strand of yarn, it’s just this time that because you’re holding the yarns together that you will.  If you look at the photo above, you can see where it’s happened on the first set of yarn crosses and the Gingerbread has mixed with the green and white yarn.  I think that’s a lovely effect and certainly something that’s unique to a hand knit!

 

Gretel

Well now, there had to be Hansel and Gretel with Gingerbread yarn, didn’t there?!

I’ve been itching to design a colourwork sock for Christmas for a while and Gingerbread offered me the perfect opportunity!  What I love about these socks is that the yarn itself provides some of the colourwork for you, so the only sections where you are working with two yarns are the motifs on the leg.

Here are the motif stripes …

Can you see that there’s a band of trees and a band of snowflakes?  The rest of the “colourwork” is the yarn so the trick with this pattern is to start the socks at the beginning of a colour stripe and let it do the magic for you as you work down your sock.  Isn’t that fabulous?  I thought so!  If you’re new to colourwork, my Easy Colourwork Socks tutorial will help you to get to grips with using two colours and also the idea of dominant colours to make your trees and snowflakes pop!

The heel is a heel stitch heel flap which you’ll be familiar with if you’ve knitted my Basic 4ply Socks.  They’re knitted in a contrast colour so if this is new to you, have a look at my Contrast Cuff, Heel and Toe tutorial to help!

 

Rudy

We couldn’t miss out the last of Santa’s reindeers in a sock name, could we? 🙂

Rudy is a textured sock pattern, perfect for something just a little bit different from basic socks.  There are triangles of raised knit and purl stitches which sit between rib sections at the side of the leg and foot – it’s ideal for showing off the lovely Gingerbread stripes whilst still having some interest in the pattern.

There’s a heel stitch heel flap with this pattern but don’t forget that you can mix and match the heels if you want to so you could use either the Ribbed Heel Stitch or the “usual” heel stitch on any of the socks if you prefer the fit of either to what’s written in the pattern.

 

Buddy

These sweet little baby socks are actually proper socks and not bootees – it’s never too early to get the little ones into hand knits, I say!

I’ve designed them like this – again, based on the Basic 4ply Socks pattern – so that you can use the Sockalong tutorials if you get stuck, but also so that once those tiny feet aren’t quite so tiny any more, you can use the socks as Christmas decorations which I think is the cutest keepsake!  You don’t even have to knit these for babies, you can knit them for decorations – they would be perfect on a Christmas tree or as festive bunting!

The socks feature a rolled cuff and the pattern is written so that you knit the cuff then fold it inside and knit the rest of the sock away from the cuff so that when it’s finished, the cuff will turn down and be the right side out.  Follow the pattern as it’s written and it will work out – trust me!

And there you have it – four pairs of knitted socks for Gingerbread yarn!  There’s also a crochet pair called Clementine designed by Anna Nikipirowicz and that’s free to download too.

What do you think?!  I do hope you enjoy the patterns and the Gingerbread yarn – it’s not just for socks so you might have other ideas for it as well!  This yarn would work really well as a hat, scarf or cowl, and all of those knit up quickly for gifts – don’t forget that there are some shawl and cowl patterns on the blog which you might think would be just the thing for this yarn – and even if you’re not celebrating Christmas, I think these colours would make a perfect addition to anyone’s wardrobe.

Here’s wishing you happy knitting!

 

The download links to each of the patterns are here:

 

 

Photo credits:  all photos by West Yorkshire Spinners except close ups of Hansel, Gretel and Rudy pattern sections.