Sunday 26 November 2023

New pattern alert: Christmas Cracker Socks

Hello... it's been a while, but after much work behind the scenes, I have a new pattern out today! It's sparkly, and colourful, and festive, and I hope it brings you as much joy as it has bought me.

It’s early December, let’s head to the loft and dig out the Christmas decorations. The boxes aren’t just full of shiny sparkly things, they are full of memories! School-project decorations made from egg boxes, souvenir decorations from holiday markets around the world, glass decorations handed down from Grandparents, paper streamers from the 1970s, and quite a collection of brightly coloured shiny decorations from the 80s. Every decoration has a story to tell (even the plastic ones you bought as a box-set from Woolworths in the 1980s!). It’s the 1980s decorations that have inspired this sock pattern. I found a photo of a foil Christmas decoration on Pinterest, and the colours spoke to (shouted at) me: all the bright colours, plenty of sparkle, these socks keep your attention the whole way through! I worked with Quack yarn to create a colour palette that matched that original decoration, and I love what Fiona came up with.

The socks are knitted from the cuff down, and feature a slipped-stitch stripe pattern that is easy to memorise. The pattern includes instructions for both afterthought and short-row heels, so you can choose whichever version works best for you. The pattern uses the Barn toe, which is my favourite as it doesn’t involve any grafting – if you use the short-row heel, you can skip grafting completely.

This pattern is perfect for a mini-skein set - I knitted mine in a set of minis specially designed by Quack Yarn, a yarn advent, or for using up scraps of yarn. If you’d prefer to use a single colour for the main colour, I’ve included the yardages for that option too. Of course you can switch the colours up to something more muted than my samples – they’d look great knitted in a gradient set.

You can knit this pattern for the whole family – the pattern is written for 9 sizes, with circumferences from 7.5 cm (3 in) to 27.5 cm (11 in). The smallest size makes a great Christmas decoration, and the biggest one would make a very respectable stocking!

Sounds like something you might like to knit? You can find the pattern on Ravelry and Payhip, and if you use the code CRACKERS you can have 15% off until the end of 2023.



Tuesday 2 May 2023

What's happening at Vikki Bird Designs?

It’s been a while… You might have noticed that I haven’t published many patterns for over a year now… Somewhere between my children growing up, an impending 40th birthday and a global pandemic, I lost my love for designing knitting patterns.


I’m still knitting, but most of my current projects are vanilla socks, with the odd knit for my kids that I’m knitting following someone else’s pattern. And right now that’s all I need.

I started a new non-knitting job towards the end of last year, which I love. I thought I might return to designing patterns during my free time, but right now I realise that I’d rather spend my free time with my family and friends than chasing deadlines.

This is not goodbye - my patterns are all still available in the usual places and I’m still responding to pattern support requests, but I’m much quieter on social media, just sharing my personal projects when I’m in the mood. There are a couple of patterns that I started designing before I started my new job - some have samples ready to go, and I’ve even taken photographs of a couple of them. And maybe one day I’ll release them as patterns, but I’ll let you know that as and when they’re ready!

Thanks for reading. I hope all is well with you and hopefully I’ll be in touch again sometime before the end of 2023.