This year’s advent sock is celebrating our homes and communities. Daily sections include all kinds of living situations, from a cottage in the woods to high-rise apartments and condos and everything in between.

This sock/stocking pattern is designed to be knit for Advent, the 12 days or Christmas, or at your own pace for your own winter celebrations, using scraps and left-overs.

Advent: Knit one sock section each day from December 1 - 24. This year I have included the heels, toes, and cuffs into the 24 days. For the stocking version, you can knit one section every other day, or knit 2 stockings.

12 days of Christmas: Start on Christmas day, and knit one section of each sock until January 6. For the stocking version, one section per day will give you a finished stocking.

Solstice or any other winter festival, or just for fun: knit at your own pace to finish in time for your holiday celebration.

Year-long knit-along: Knit one section on each sock, each month throughout the year to have a finished pair by next Christmas.

I have chosen to release this as a FREE pattern again because so many people are struggling more than usual this year due to the pandemic. If you choose to support my work, you can buy one of my other patterns, for yourself or as a gift, or you can contribute at Paypal.me/Remembrances .

The pattern is written as a cuff-down sock, with a short row heel. If you strongly prefer toe-up sock knitting, you can rotate the charts upside-down and still use the same heel.

Each colourwork section includes “optional embellishment” ideas. You can add as few or as many embellishments you want, to really make these personalized. Have fun with it!

Heels, toes and cuffs for my sample were done on 2.25 mm needles. Colourwork was done on a 2.75 mm needle. As with most colourwork, you can adjust the fit by adjusting the gauge (by going up or down in needle size) and you can go up to sport or DK weight yarn on a larger needle, if desired, for a larger foot size.
I would recommend DK or light worsted for the stocking, on 3.5mm - 5mm needle depending on your gauge and desired fabric.

In my sock samples, I used a total of 76 g/ 332 yds of fingering weight yarn for the pair to fit a 9.5” foot. Scraps and leftovers needed for each stripe range from 2 - 5 grams of each colour, per colourwork section. Your yardage will vary depending on the gauge, needle size, and yarn you choose, as well as the finished sock size.

It is designed to use scraps of yarn for each section, but both of mine were knit using mostly one colour background. It can also be knit using just 2 contrasting colours.

I’ve included charts for both a day and night version with a variety of contrast colours. If you are using just 2 colours, you can choose your chart depending on your background colour. I have also included colouring charts if you want to test your colour choices in advance, or if you want to have a specific chart for your colour choices to make for easier chart reading. One colouring chart should be enough to test 3 colour options.

You can make your socks identical, or you can really have fun with colours and make them wild. You can keep to one colour palette or really let loose. You can even swap leftovers with friends for almost matching socks.