This is my favorite picture of my Mom. She’s gone fishin’, wearing her Buster Brown socks. I think the date is 1938. Mom turns 74 today.

Even now, when I look in my Mother’s face, just talking, most times I see this bright little smile. Her eyes crinkle up along the edges in the same joyful shape. They draw me in and hold me tight. Might be the most powerful tractor beam on the planet, this connection between a mother and child.

You’ve probably felt this power. Maybe your own mother was just looking at you with delight. Maybe those eyes told you another unspoken story and made you squirm and wince and wish you hadn’t ditched your little sister when Mom asked you to play with her for a just a little while longer.

Maybe those eyes gave you needed understanding and hope even when you knew what was behind the outside was something only she could bear on the inside and maybe never really show you.

It’s been a hard, hard year for my Mom. She’s been making peace with difficult physical changes in her spine. It’s letting her down in so many ways, I am sometimes astounded she can even move around anymore at all.

But move she does and this year, when it got close to her birthday and she started talking SOCKS I knew just what to do. Last year, I’d given her little sister, my aunt, some yarn and needles and set her down the rosy path to Toeville.

This is what I sent to Mom:

Under all this swag is the “Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles” book and on top, some Regia, Opal, Cascade 220 and Addis to practice on before she goes small gauge. I showed Mom how to use the two circs to knit big pieces a few years ago to help her manage the weight of a sweater.
I can’t wait to see what she makes with this!

The rainy, overcast weather makes for some yummy late summer knittin’ ease. Here’s my Khaki pulli – I’m thinkin’ it’s going to be fun to wear in September. (It’s almost September… :)

You can sort of see I am using 2 – 32″ circular needles to knit this in the round. The light here is really faint this morning – hard to get a good shot (and I don’t like flash). Anyway, when a sweater is all huge in the shoulder area with the mammoth amount of stitches you get when you knit in one piece, it is easier, IMHO, to use the two circs – smooth operation. Many people use this technique to knit the small tubes like you get in socks and gloves. I like it for the Big Tubes you get on a sweater.

I use one needle for each *side* – going from mid-sleeve to other mid-sleeve per needle, which is cool on ribbing because if there are any (and believe it or not there ususally isn’t when you get the hang of it) wonky join problems, it’s in the purl valley. (Sounds like a good place to live – “in the purl valley”). If I was doing a different kind of stitch pattern, I might position the join elsewhere to minimize any probs.

This two circular method is really easy on the wrists and hands too – my Mom took to it like a duck to water and she has pretty dire arthritis. Thank you all who have asked about her – she is doing better – still struggling with extreme degenerative disk disease and the many day-to-day challenges our elders face.

Like much in life, small changes can make a big difference in comfort levels, so I’m also knitting the RP inside out to keep it clean as it travels with me on the #66. No kid glove handling when we go mobile! It’s in the bag, stuffed. Out of the bag lapped. I do believe this is the first thing I’ve ever knit in public that I haven’t been asked if it is a Scarf! WOOT! Some kind of knitic sonic barrier has been crossed! Could be time to knit an entire sweater with #3 needles!

Maybe not.

self-portrait Tuesday…

and what knocked my socks off?