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March 12, 2008
Knits All in the Family
I am a muggle-born.
Nobody in my family taught me to knit. My mother knows how to knit, but I'm sure she hasn't done it for at least 30 years. Instead, she's a quilter through and through. My grandmother knew how to knit, but she preferred to spend her craft time baking, sewing, beading, embroidering, and crocheting. I have strong memories of my aunt knitting when I was a child. My cousin and I would play with her knitting needles, wondering how it all came together, and how a person ever got the stitches off the needle. But, as it turns out, that knitting project still isn't finished these 30 years later, and it was the one and only knitting project my aunt ever attempted. She was surprised to hear, this weekend when I showed up for my mother's surprise birthday party, that she was my original inspiration to learn to knit.
As I mentioned awhile back, I decided to make my mother a pair of handknit socks for her birthday. This project went through a few iterations before I finally settled on some self-striping yarn and the basic sock pattern from the Yarn Harlot. I knew my family would be impressed with the self-striping yarn, and as the time crunch increased, I knew I had a chance to finish them because I didn't have to pay attention to the pattern.
I took the train to North Dakota for the big birthday surprise. Yes, my mother did not know that three of her four children who live out of shouting distance from her were all coming to visit, unannounced. I was counting on some good knitting time on the train to finish the socks, but I didn't plan for the heat to go out in the train.
Let's face it--when it looks like this outside:
and there's no heat inside, it's hard to do this:
Folks, there was frost on my needles! I contemplated the notion of knitting to stay warm, but I was so cold, I couldn't do it. Eventually, they got some repair people on the train, and it started to warm up, but we were practically to my destination at that point.
At any rate, I kept at it, and got the socks finished for my mother's big birthday. I decided not to worry about having the self-striping yarn match on each foot, and it was a good thing, too, as in one place, the yarn was actually knotted together, and I didn't figure it out until much later but there was a huge gap in the pattern at that place.
Finished socks! Yay!
I gave them to my mother with all of the beaming and raw emotion of a child. It was like I was 7 again, giving her a glue-smeared popsicle stick birdhouse ornament for mother's day. She took them, told me they were beautiful, and then said, "they're much too pretty to wear" and put them in her drawer. I responded in words I knew she would understand: "you wouldn't want me to say that about your quilts--they're much to pretty to use."
She paused, and realized what she had said, and apologized. The proof, however, was still in the pudding. She didn't wear them the rest of the weekend. Muggle. No more handknit socks for her!
Posted by chri1010 at March 12, 2008 11:00 PM | Because knitting rocks my socks!