pattern: heather legwarmers

With 3 balls of single colour sock yarn and a belief that knitting plain coloured socks were seriously boring, I decided to make up a pattern that would be interesting enough to knit, but something i could knit on a LONG tube journey to a friend's house. With my daughter complaining that her legs were cold, the idea of stripy leg warmers as born. Although I knit these to fit her, it would be easy to adapt the width and length to any kid.


Yarn: Cygnet wool rich 4ply.

205 yards per 50g ball
75% wool
25% polyamide
machine washable
lilac, denim mix and pine mix

cost: £2.60 per ball, although less than 20% of each ball is used in thsi pattern as written

time: 10 hours

knitability level: advanced beginner, it's a good first dpn project.

needles: 2.5mm (US 1.5)

gauge: 30 stitches and 36 rows per 10cm

Cast on 60 stitches onto one needle, spread these stitches equally over 3 needles, 20 stitches per needle and join work into a round, taking care not to twist the cast on. Knit in 1x1 rib ( k1, p1, repeat until end of round) for 3 inches. After a few rounds you may wish to place a marker to indicate the end of a round. All colour changes should take place at the end of a round.

Then switch to stocking stitch. keep knitting in the round following the stripe pattern of your preference. Make up your own, use a random stripe generator or follow my stripe pattern that I will put at the end of the pattern. You can carry the yarn up the inside of the tube or cut and sew in ends after every row. For a child's pattern, yarns will need to be twisted with the working yarn on every row so it isn't caught by small toes when it's put on.

After every 4cm of knitting, M1 stitch at the start of every needle. Knit until stocking stitch measures 17 cm, this will give you an even number of stitches for the end rib. (an even number of increace rows is needed if you choose to adapt length)

Complete the end rib of 3cm and cast off loosely.

Sew in ends.

Repeat to give a pair of leg warmers and present to the small child of your choice.

To adapt the size, change the number of stitches for the cast on, (keeping an even number of stitches for the rib) and the length knit, keeping an even number of increase rows so there is an even number of stitches for the end rib.

The leg width is adapted by measuring the diameter of the child's leg just above the ankle and adding 2cm. Multiply the number of cm by 3 to give your cast on number, adding a stitch if necessary to get an even number.

To alter length, measure the length of the leg from just below the ankle bone to the crease at the back of the knee. This is the length of the stocking stitch part of the leg warmer. This leaves a 6cm growth allowance before the legwarmer no longer covers the whole calf.


green: 3cm rib plus one stocking stitch row
lilac: 12 rows
green: 4 rows
blue: 12 rows
lilac: 3 rows
blue: 7 rows
green: 12 rows
lilac: 10 rows
blue: 7 rows
lilac: 1 stocking stitch row plus 3cm rib