Christmas socks

I spent a great deal of time waiting for Ray when he covered new stories in our early marriage and I decided it would be nice to have something to do so I learned to knit from a .25 cent book from the dime store. I made baby booties and stuff and entered them at the Topeka Fair. My sister Ethel read an article in the Woman's Home Companion and told me to switch to Christmas socks. I have done over a thousand now and have a nice long list of people who were kind enough to let me knit them. I've never been a great knitter and have made some of them wrong. During the time I have knitted I've met some great people. I knitted one for a family that the baby died but they wanted a sock to remember it by. I knitted two for a grandmother who was dying and wanted to leave them to her two grandchildren so they would remember her. I made one for someone who was shot but recovered and one murdered who did not recover. I have had families break up and return socks of the member who was not around anymore.

I took a long time to knit them. I think the fastest I did was when my first granddaughter was born in Washington, DC and I made her sock on the 3 hour flight to Washington. It is probably a shorter flight now so even if I was good I would not get it done. I had to re-knit one family who stored the socks with candy still in them and a pack rat ate the candy and the socks. I have knitted four for family dogs. Some names are a little long so I have had to go down the side of the sock with the name instead of across. I have had them on the cover of a magazine.

I'm still knitting but I do not knit as well as my daughter, Susan, and at the moment am stuck on knitting the heel. One child lost her sock. She was a neighorhood child and her mother said she could not ask me but one morning I found her 8 year old self outside my door and she said, "My mother says I can't ask you but I want a sock". I knitted her another. It is a fun hobby and I've met a lot of people because of it. I used to knit them on planes but I don't think they allow needles on the plane anymore. The only country I have run into that does not knit is Africa. They crochet.