Triangles Mini-sock Free Needlepoint Project

It’s cold in Northern California, so this Triangles Mini-sock in warm colors is a perfect project for today.

The pattern is based on a scrap quilt and uses trianglepoint for making the triangles. There are two kinds of “scrap” triangles, one large and one small. The large triangles are actually stitched of four small triangles. The small triangles are surrounded by more small triangles made in the background color.

Material List

• Wool in the background color of your choice
• 18-mesh mono canvas, 8 x 10
• extra-fine marker made for marking fabric (SCA-UF or Pigma Micron)
• assorted scraps of various threads (use the ones from your collection)

Picking Scrap Colors

While many scrap bag projects look great when you just pick colors at random, narrowing down your choices for colors to use can also make an effective design. When I did this Mini-Sock, I wanted something with a warm feel. I divided my scrap threads into two rough categories. This mini-sock uses the warm colors plus red-violet. The cooler colors will be used for another project.

Depending on the look you want you can take almost anything as your inspiration for colors for a stash project. Do you want it to match the colors in a room? Pick threads which match the colors in all the prints in the room. Do you have a child who loves one particular color? Gather all your threads in that color and stitch away. Is it for a wedding present? Why not use all white and gold threads? The possibilities are endless.

Chose a dark or neutral color which coordinates with the colors in your stash pile. While cream and white are always good choices, expand your possibilites with dark colors or pastels. Whatever you chose it should highlight the scraps, not overwhelm them. This is why bright colors often do not work in scrap bag needlepoint.

In this case I wanted to keep the warm feeling, so I used burgundy for the background. This color is much darker than the colors used for the triangles, so it keeps the focus on them.

Stitching the Triangles Mini-Sock

1. Trace the mini-sock outline, above, onto your canvas using the pen. Do not trace the internal lines to divide the sock into patches.

   

2. Begin somewhere in the center of the sock and make one big triangle, charted above, in a scrap thread. If you have some of this thread left, set it aside, you will want to use it in a different part of the mini-sock.

   

3. Now make the smaller triangle next to it, charted above. For the small scrap traingles use the threads which are smallest in length. Continue in this way working from the center to one edge.
4. Make the row of triangles above your original row. Triangles pointing up are always stitched completely in a scrap thread. Triangles pointing down are stitched with only one small triangle in a scrap thread.
5. When choosing which thread to put into each triangle, you get a great random look by following some simple rules:
   • Always make adjacent triangles (1 big, 1 small, or 2 bigs or 2 smalls) of different textures and colors.
   • Always be sure that similar colors and textures are not next to each other in any diagonal row.
   • If you have enough of a particular thread to make more than one triangle, no matter the sizes, put them into different quadrants.
   • Save the littlest scraps to make partial triangles at the edges of your design.
   • Don’t throw any scap of thread away until you are finished stitching, then discard scraps shorter than 18″).