Hollyberry Christmas Socks in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 Ply - Downloadable PDF

Hollyberry Christmas Socks – Free Knitting Pattern by Emma Wright in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 Ply

The Hollyberry Christmas Socks pattern by designer Emma Wright is a festive, free downloadable PDF knitting pattern released as a Christmas gift from West Yorkshire Spinners. Worked in the brand's award-winning Signature 4 Ply yarn, these seasonal socks feature classic holly and berry motifs rendered through colourwork and decorative stitch techniques, making them a charming project for the holiday knitting basket. The pattern is rated intermediate in difficulty, making it well suited to knitters who are comfortable with sock construction and basic colourwork but who want to develop their skills further with cable and bobble details.

What Is Being Made

The pattern produces a pair of Christmas-themed knitted socks designed to fit an average ladies' shoe size 5–6, though the sizing is noted as adjustable. Key finished measurements are a cuff circumference of approximately 18cm, a heel-to-cuff height of 13cm, and a foot length of 23cm. The design features a two-colour scheme that evokes traditional holly berry imagery, with one colourway representing red berries and the other providing green holly leaves. Importantly, the pattern instructs knitters to begin the right sock and left sock differently — the right sock starts with yarn B from the outside of the ball, while the left sock starts from the inside of the ball — so that the green lengths used for holly leaves are correctly positioned in each sock.

Yarn and Materials

The pattern calls for West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 Ply yarn in two specific shades:

• Shade A – Cherry Drop: one 100g ball, used as the main background colour representing the red berry tones
• Shade B – Holly Berry: one 100g ball, used for the contrasting holly leaf colourwork sections

West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 Ply is a sock-weight yarn celebrated for its durability and stitch definition, and it was a Best Sock Yarn winner (as noted on the pattern cover for 2016), making it particularly well suited to the detailed stitch work this design requires.

Needles and Notions

The socks are knitted in the round using a set of 4 or 5 double pointed needles (DPNs) in size 3.25mm, with a recommended length of 20cm. Additional notions required include:

• 2 stitch markers to mark round beginnings and pattern sections
• A cable needle for working the cable and twist stitches featured in the pattern

Tension

The stated tension is 28 stitches × 36 rows to 10cm / 4 inches over stocking stitch using 3.25mm needles. Achieving correct tension is especially important in sock knitting, where fit around the foot and cuff depends on accurate stitch and row counts.

Techniques Used

This pattern draws on a range of intermediate knitting techniques that go well beyond basic sock construction:

• Knitting in the round on double pointed needles, the standard method for seamless sock construction
• Two-colour knitting, with yarn B used selectively for holly leaf sections, requiring knitters to manage two strands and follow colourwork placement instructions
• Cable knitting, using a cable needle to create twisted and crossed stitch patterns that add texture and visual interest to the design
• Bobble making (MB), worked by knitting into the front, back, and front of a single stitch, then working short rows of purl and knit before completing a central decrease — this creates the rounded berry bobbles that give the sock its festive character
• Short row heel construction implied by the sock structure, worked back and forth on a subset of stitches
• Increases and decreases including M1 (make one by picking up the strand between stitches and knitting through the back loop), KFB (knit into front and back), K2togtbl (knit two together through the