Vintage Stocking for William Begun

My grandson, William, arrived on April 13th, 2018. He is my second grandson and fifth grandchild. He had the good grace to plan his birthday with plenty of lead time for me to make his vintage stocking in time for his first Christmas. These stockings are a family tradition and I have made them for my son-in-law Jeremy, my daughter-in-law Carrie and four other grandchildren. For William I gathered my essential supplies – yarn&needles, instructions, tips from past that I had documented in my blog, and charted name.

When I set out to chart his name, I found William is quite wide. I needed to narrow the M, W, and L to fit on the alotted space in the white  band of the stocking. When compared with a portion of the alphabet chart from the instructions it can be seen that the L is one space narrower (four instead of five at its base) and the W and M are seven spaces wide instead of nine. All are still recognizable as the letters they are meant to be.

The following photo is not upside down. The stocking is knitted from the top down so it is easier to read the chart inverted. As I knit the rows of the chart, I highlight them with yellow magic marker. I put arrows at the edges to remind me from which direction I should be reading the chart when knitting.

Last night was my first night and I completed the William name band. Yay! That is the most fun one.

The dates below are clickable links to posts about stockings previously knitted for other family members. Autumn and Isaiah are sister and brother. Vivian and Lillian are sisters. William is the little brother of Vivian and Lillian. The post for Vivian's stocking has the most knitting tips. I'd learned a lot by then, having made three other stockings previously.

December 31, 2011 Jeremy and Carrie
December 10, 2014 Autumn (born in October 2012 - I was late completing hers)
December 17, 2014 Vivian (April birthday)
December 28, 2015 Isaiah (July birthday - completed before the stroke of midnight Christmas eve)
November 29, 2016 Lillian (May birthday)

October 31, 2018 (this post; a later post upon completion) William (April birthday)

The original 1945 pattern can be downloaded for free from
http://www.knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/christmas/1945-stocking.htm.
Linking up now with Let's Bee Social #248.