CatKnitz: Solstice Stocking

I am thinking of starting a new tradition: the Solstice Stocking. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere (especially here at the 47th parallel), we celebrate the winter solstice or midwinter. Midwinter is the day when we have the shortest number of daylight hours, but after that, the days start to get longer . I think we all need a stocking filled with goodies to celebrate the returning of the LIGHT!!! All in the Southern Hemisphere, how about a Summer Solstice Stocking?

Why a stocking, you say? Especially a striped one? Well, another tradition that goes along with this Solstice Stocking could be stash busting! Check out this fabulous looking example my friend Michelle made for her son, Grant, from pieces of Cascade 220 , Cascade Pastaza, and other mystery yarn from her stash and a pattern from the book, Christmas Stockings.

She brought this to our knitting group the other evening and we all went crazy. We couldn't take our hands off it. It's big enough to get your hand inside of it (!) and long enough but not tooooo long. Just right.

And, since I (and several others in our group) have yet to knit a sock (!!!) what a great way to learn sock basics than on a really big sock, that doesn't have to fit and is going to be felted so that any minor mistakes will be somewhat obliterated!

A couple of interesting items to note:

Michelle tells me she knit all the stripes the same width/same number of rows.
As you can see, they didn't felt the same. Which, actually, I think, adds to the visual interest of the stocking. If (no WHEN) I make my stocking, and if I use all the same yarn, I will vary the widths of the stripes so that the end result is like Michelle's.
Shaving the finished product made a huge difference in the look. The consensus among the group (and most importantly, from Grant's point of view) was the shaved look was superior to the fuzzy look. Here are the two sides, you decide.
The Wonder Washer. I just recently read about this product on Craft Gossip, a new site for me. I will be checking this site out for tips. Back to the Wonder Washer, it looks like it might be a good solution for those of us with front loaders that take forever to felt items.