Christmas and Holiday Gift Socks Knitting Guides

Is it really that time of the year already?!

If you’re reading this post then you are probably thinking about the socks that you’re going to be knitting as gifts whether for Christmas or another holiday at the end of the year – and you may well be thinking that there’s not as much time as you need to get them all done.

Don’t worry – I’m here to help!

I have created two gift socks knitting guides, one for Christmas and one for other holidays as not everybody celebrates Christmas, and my aim is to help you feel calm and in control as you work your way through your knitting gift list.

Ta-da!

Let me show you what I’ve put together as I’ve thought long and hard about what you need to think about even before you start knitting gift socks, and if you’re someone who’s always knitting up until the last possible minute and ends up as a stressed mess before all the fun starts, then I want to help you make sure this year is different!

What’s inside the guides?

Plenty!  There are 45 pages to each guide and they’re in PDF form so you can choose to print out or read as much on your phone, tablet or computer as you like.  45 pages can be a lot to print out in one go, but the guide is in very definite sections so it’s easy to choose which pages you want.

The first section is about deciding who you’re going to knit for and going through your initial list of people to make sure that you actually want to knit for them.  That might sound like an odd thing to say, but we knitters are a generous lot and sometimes get caught up in offering or agreeing to knit for somebody that we might wish we hadn’t later on.  The first section of the guide goes through a checklist to help you decide whether someone stays on your list or not so that when you get to your final list of gift recipients, you will be knitting for them with a happy heart.

There are pattern suggestions, advice on types of socks to knit depending on your skills and deadline, keeping track of your progress and finishing off your socks.

The second section consists of printable charts to help you keep track of your decisions and progress; the idea is that you can use them in conjunction with the first section while you make your decisions, and then you can save individual information for the pairs of gift socks that you’re knitting.  You can keep that safe for future years too, and there’s space for feedback so you can make notes about whether you’d knit for this person again … just because you can knit socks as gifts doesn’t mean you are obliged to every year!

There’s a copy of my Basic 4ply Socks pattern and the Basic 4ply Children’s Socks pattern as they are the ones most downloaded at this time of year, and it’s handy to have them in the guide so that you don’t have to go looking for them.  I’ve also included links to lots of my other popular sock patterns to use as inspiration when you’re looking for a pattern to knit for someone, or so that you can find them easily – you can follow the links if you’re reading online and I’ve written them out in full in case you’re offline too.

Finally, I’ve included two versions of a brand new IOU letter so that you can pick the style you like …

and I’ve included three pages of sock wrap labels (six wraps in total – four with pre-printed messages, two blank for your own message) which are also brand new.  The wraps are different depending on whether you have the Christmas or the holiday guide.

You can print each of the charts or labels off as many times as you like, which means that you’ve got your guide for this year … next year … and all the years after that too!

I’ve set up the pages so that there is a binding edge down one side to make the guide into a book rather than just printed pages.  I know lots of people like to use binders for their patterns and with this guide you might want to keep the charts safe too, so this way, you can add a slide binder like I’ve done …

 or you can punch holes and put them into a ring binder without losing any of the text.  Of course, you can just staple the top if you’d rather – and if you’re only printing out certain pages then you don’t necessarily need to bind them at all, but the option is there if you want it.

Who are these guides for?

They’re for anybody who is knitting socks for gifts, whether for Christmas or another holiday or celebration.  I’ve focussed on the types of event where you might be knitting a lot of pairs for a single deadline rather than occasional pairs for birthdays or general gifts during the year.

This time of year is one of the busiest on my blog as so many people decide that they want to make and gift hand knitted socks for events at the end of year – and what a fabulous thing that is!  I am very biased but I think hand knitted socks are one of the best gifts you can give someone!  However, I also know that many people overestimate the amount of time they have or how quickly they can knit, and sometimes life gets in the way which can make it all feel very stressful if you can see deadlines looming faster than you’d like them to.

The Gift Socks Knitting Guides are written for anybody – beginners and experienced sock knitters alike – who needs a bit of clarity on their gift knitting, and a bit of help in getting organised and focussed for “gift knitting season”.  Just like the Winwick Mum Sockalong tutorials, I’ve written the guides as if we’re sitting together as I think it’s much easier to look at this sort of stuff with a friend.  I’ve tried to be a good friend, too, and asked you some tough questions about who you’re knitting for and whether they should be on your list or not, because knitting socks as gifts for people isn’t just about using up your TV-watching time to knock out a few presents.  Your time and your money also play a part here, and we need to be careful with both!

So you can help me save time and money?

Yes, absolutely!  By the time we’ve gone through your list, you won’t be spending time knitting for people you don’t want to, or who won’t appreciate their lovely socks.

You also won’t be spending money on yarn or patterns for those people, and that can be a considerable cost as sock yarn is not cheap.  You can find free patterns of course, as many of mine are, but you might also want to buy a particular pattern and if you do that a few times the total cost of the gift goes up.  The same goes for gift labels if you were to buy them – they’re not expensive, but it’s still adding to the total cost of your gift.

Finally, there’s your time … asking how much to charge for a pair of hand-knitted socks is a regular question in my Facebook groups and it’s never as much as your time is worth.  Make sure you spend your time and money on people who deserve your socks on their feet!

What’s the difference between the Christmas and the holiday guide?

There are essentially the same guide, I just haven’t referred to Christmas in the holiday version.  I’ve also made sure that there are no Christmassy images in there either.  You won’t miss out on any information whichever one you choose, it’s just down to whether you want Christmas images and references or not.

Can’t I get all this for free from the blog?

You can find a free IOU letter and both Christmas and holiday sock wrap labels in the Winwick Mum shop, and the Basic 4ply Socks and Basic 4ply Children’s Socks patterns are there as well.  I have included an information sheet in the guides for individual sock details that is similar to the pages in Project Super Socks but it’s not the same, and the one in the guides was specifically created with deadline gift knitting in mind.

As for the rest of the information, it’s stuff that I have talked about in various blog posts and Facebook conversations over the last 14 years or so, but it’s not available in one place so you would have to go and search for it.

What I have done here with the gift guides is brought all of my knowledge and experience together in one place to save you time.  You don’t have to go searching on the blog or social media, you don’t have to download different things from different places, it’s all here.  The guides have been thoroughly tested out by knitting friends who were not afraid to tell me what they thought, and I’m happy that I’ve got everything here that you’ll need!  We’re all short of time or even if we’re not, the time you might spend searching the blog or elsewhere on the internet for free resources could be better spent knitting your gift socks 🙂

I can’t wait to get started!  How do I get a copy?

You can click either of the images below and they’ll take you to the blog shop, and you can also buy the guides on Payhip and Ravelry if you live overseas.

The guides are £7.00 each, and will be at an introductory price of £5.95 (that’s 15% off) until 31 October 2025 so that you’ve got everything you need to plan, knit and wrap your hand made gifts on one place.

I hope you find them really useful, and I wish you a very calm and organised gift knitting season!