We've got a live one!

I think I mentioned recently that I have been knitting and crocheting for a long time. My grandma taught me when I was five, I did it for about six years and then I didn't do it consistently for about 20, except for the occasional quickly abandoned UFO.
Now I do it again.

After 30 years of knitting history, Kay In Stitches proudly presents:

My First Sock


This is an unusual development.
Normally, I only knit what I like. It doesn't necessarily have to be intended for me, but I have to like the item in general and see its justified place in the universe, or I'm not interested.
Me? I hate socks. I would (and did) go barefoot in winter boots. My feet are almost always warm to hot (yeah, I'm a very sought-after snuggle partner) and come April 1, I abandon all pretense and go sockless until people look at me funny in October.
Knitting socks never really occurred to me until I thought about new stuff to give to my mom the other day. I used to give her nice hand lotions, funky magazines, aromatherapy anything and the latest chocolate developments - all the things my dad wouldn't necessarily think of. Now, however, the time has come to think of other kinds of comfort, because Mom can't enjoy most of those things anymore.

A little explanation here: my mom is dying of cancer and has now entered the stage where she can't leave the bed anymore and takes meds that impair her mental clarity. She doesn't wear shrugs or shawls, because she has to turn frequently and gets tangled up and uncomfortable in anything but simple cotton PJs. (Mom would kill me dead for mentioning her PJs in public. :o) And after a total of six years of chemotherapy, she has about 27,000 chemo hats. She also has hair at the moment.

So, socks seemed to be a good idea. She wears them in bed all the time, and let's be honest here -my first pair of knit socks will be something only a mother could love. Perfect.
The yarn is Regia Color 5025, very cheery and springtime-y, and much prettier in person. You will note that I'm doing without any sort of sophisticated pattern, yet I still managed to mess up the "idiot rib" a few times.
I'm not sure that I'll fall in love with sock knitting, even though I do drool over all the cool patterns out there. On the other hand: if my mom actually likes them, this blog will turn into Sock-A-Gogo in no time.

I don't think it's an accident that knitting and crocheting play a big role in my life again. Lately, when I'm doing yarnstuff, I am overwhelmed with memories of the women in my family.
My grandma (dad's mother, we don't talk about mom's, for she was evil) was a wiz with needles. She'd look at you once and knit a sweater that fit you perfectly, no measurements, patterns optional. One Christmas, my dad made a wooden doll closet for me, complete with mirror inside the door (plastic, of course), shelves and all. And Grandma filled it with an entire collection of knitted clothes for my dolls in three different sizes. It was the best gift ever - and even today, people would be hard up to find something that could fill me with the same joy and amazement.

My mom knit her way through the 70s and 80s. I shudder to think of those creations from the original days of the bell-bottom and rainbow effect yarn, but she wore them with zeal, and so did I. Especially that grass green sweater made from bulky cotton that could have harbored me and three fugitives at the end of its life. She owned a business and had 70-hour weeks, then took care of assorted ailing family members on the weekend. Knitting was for sanity.

My grandma died when I was ten, but my memories of her are still vivid, and I don't think I'll ever lose my appreciation for the love and creativity that defined her life. Letting go of my mother is a long and hard process, and I'm not about to say that the craft is turning it all into a Lifetime TV movie. I wish. But the memory and appreciation of someone you love is never just about one thing, it is about the many connections between your life and that person's life, and you need to cherish as many of these connections as you can. In our family, wielding hooks and needles - like having big hips and boobs - is a tradition that connects at least three generations of women (I have photographic evidence of more, but I never knew these women personally). Compared to all the other gifts my mother and grandmother gave me, knitting is certainly a small thing (especially compared to those hips :o). On the other hand - a part of my soul remembers them every time I pick up a knitting needle. It's not always conscious, but it's always there. And so are they.