Trash, treasure

Awhile ago I knit my mother a pair of socks. They were from the then-new Alpaca Sox yarn, and I knit them double-stranded in the Coriolis pattern. She liked the colors and found them comfy and warm, although more like a pair of shoes because they were so stiff. Anyway, that was years ago. The bottoms started getting worn, and holes finally developed. And she wanted to fix them.

When I first started knitting socks, I had not learned to appreciate nylon and thus, had started with Fly Designs' Monarch yarn (it is 100% merino and very soft and squishy). I am not a fast knitter, nor do I have much time, what with homeschooling two small children. The socks did not last long. I held onto them for years, thinking I would darn them. My mother-in-law even gave me an antique darning mushroom for Christmas one year, which strengthened my resolve to fix those holey socks. And eventually, one day, when the kids were down napping and I didn't have anything else to do and I could concentrate, I sat down to darn.

The finished results were ugly (I have no pictures to corroborate this fact, you'll have to take my word at it). They were bumpy. The socks felt quite uncomfortable there, despite my finest efforts and the fact that I'd saved the leftover sock yarn for just such occasions. Nonetheless, I held onto my old, holey socks for a few years, until last year in fact, thinking I would eventually get around to it. But last year I gave up hope, decided I would never enjoy wearing darned socks, and threw them out.

Alas, what a tragic mistake. Let's fast forward back to my mother with a pair of holey socks. She wanted to know how to fix them, so I pulled up videos on duplicate stitch and how to weave to fix holes in socks. I gave her the darning mushroom, needle and matching yarn. She patiently sat darning, an entire afternoon, her pair of socks. And now the holes are woven over, filled. She's delighted. And she wants me to send her all of my holey socks, because the way the patches feel do not bother her.

On one point I'm relieved to know that holey socks will have a second life (we have approximately the same shoe size, so this works out wonderfully). But at the same time, I'm a bit horrified that I'm giving her my cast-offs, my trash, to use a harsher word. I've knit her a number of pairs of socks, and she wears them all but on the hottest summer days so I know she gets use out of them (unlike my mother-in-law, for whom I've knit three pairs and I've never seen her wear a single pair). But still.

My mother would look at it from a practical standpoint and see that we both gain--I get rid of holey socks I can't wear, and in her viewpoint, she gets a new pair of socks. She used to only wear sandals (we live in Southern California so this is not terribly unusual) but ever since she's been accumulating handknit socks, she's been wearing clogs so that she can also wear said socks.

Now if I only hadn't thrown out all of those years' worth of holey socks. She would have been set.