The Sock Parade

See the above house socks? They are going to be mailed to Blaine's mother, Mary. And why, you ask, would I be doing this? It is because I finally gave up. She wore me down and I finally caved. (The above socks are my "Mardi Gras Socks" and my Opal tiger socks--and you can enlarge all the pictures by clicking on them.)

Anyhoo, it all has to do with my stupidity of knitting Mary a pair of house socks about a year and a half ago. I try to make one family member a knitted present every year. But giving Mary a pair of my socks created a monster. She began bugging me to knit her some more socks. But whenever she would bug me to knit her some more, I told her that I have a lot more family members (on both sides of the family) that I haven't knitted anything for and they were my priority for awhile. And furthermore, I told her I am currently working on my uncle's sweater right now and that it could be a long time till I finish it.

But none of this stopped her. She kept asking for more socks. Day in and day out. Every Christmas she asked---and every Thanksgiving, every Fourth of July, her birthday, St. Patrick's Day, President's Day, Cinco de Mayo and every family occasion at one of Blaine's family members' house. What was really maddening was that she also asked every time she called on the phone with myself or Blaine every weekend....

I was starting to go nutsy cuckoo.....

And then I had an epiphany.

Remember all those house socks I knitted last year? I only knitted them to see if I could play with color and stitch types. But I never wore them because they can get snagged on a nail on the metal joins between the dining room and the kitchen, and also the join between the hall and the downstairs bathroom. (This house is eons old.) So I just let the socks sit, fallow, in the knitting room.

And my epiphany was that I could give THOSE socks to Mary (she wants house socks instead of street socks.) The socks were knit for my size---and Mary has my size. So I told her on the phone that I would give them to her if she didn't mind that I never knit matching socks or sleeves. I told her that none of the socks were exactly like their mate. She said she didn't care. So Blaine told me he'll pick up a box to mail them when he's on his way home from work.

Below is a pair of "circus socks" and some camouflage socks I'm going to give her.

Then above is some "Leopardies" socks and some aran socks, each aran sock made with a different pattern. And then, of course, the Mardi Gras socks and some Opal tiger socks at the top of this post.

And ya know what I'm going to do? The box I mail the socks in will contain a nice note with a P.S. And the P.S. shall read:

"That's 6 pairs of socks, Mary. Now you're good for six years...."

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