Several months ago, when I was back in New Jersey, my mom and I were looking through her old knitting yarn. She doesn't knit much anymore and when she does she'd rather buy something new and more fashionable. I thought I could use some of her old yarn in my weaving so I snatched them up.
At the bottom of her knitting basket was a beautiful cloisonne tin (well, not real cloisonne but beautiful and cool-looking nonetheless). Inside was one finished green and white sock and the cuff of its mate with the needles still in the unfinished stitches and enough yarn to finish it. Mom informed me that these were an attempt at a pair of socks that my aunt had been making for my dad when he was in college. My aunt was still in high school (and her signature on the bottom of the tin looks like a young girl's writing). This was all a very long time ago. I'm not sure when my aunt gave them to my mom to finish but I'm guessing that tin had been in her basket for a quite some time.
Always game for crazy projects and wanting to finish the socks in memory of my dad (who died more than 20 years ago), I told my mom I'd take them and see what I could do.
She wanted the tin; I told her it was a packaged deal.
Safely back in Idaho with the tin and the half finished socks, I got involved in a bunch of other knitting projects and never found the time to work on the socks. Then just the other day I pondered what to work on next and there was the tin, calling my name.
I sat down next to the wood stove and evaluated what I had gotten myself into. The first few moments were not good. The yarn broke every 5 minutes as I attempted to unknit back to a point where the yarn has some integrity. I also realized why my aunt had quit knitting. Her tension was so tight she must have gotten cramps in her hands from gripping her needles. She had knit on size 2; I needed to get out my size 1s just to come close to the same gauge.
Finally I found a section of yarn that hadn't degraded to nothingness over the years and I was able to knit rows at a time without any breaks. But the damn stuff squeaks. It's like rubbing packing peanuts together. But I'm learning to live with it.
Figuring out the heel without a pattern on a pair of 50 year old socks made me glad I'd gotten an engineering degree. Now that I'm past the heel I envision smooth sailing to the toe. The idea of finishing the pair doesn't seem so crazy anymore. Thinking about my dad and my aunt as I knit drowns out all that squeaking.
The Finished Pair
