visiting Grandma

Went to visit my Grandma yesterday - she stole one of the squishy pigs I had taken to show her!

She was telling me the story (again) of how she began to knit socks, so here goes.

It was during the War (world war 2) - she and my Grandfather had been married and I think my oldest uncle had been born, perhaps my mum as well.

My Grandad had been sent off to to man the barrage balloons near the big chemical factories in a neighboring town, and Grandma was scrimping and saving and living on rations.

She had gone to the wool shop, where like everything else wool was rationed - the woman who owned the shop had 4oz of wool for each of her customers, so Grandma bought her 4oz. The woman then informed her this was sock wool - grandma explained she had never knit socks before, and was expecting a refund, when the woman place 5 needles down on the counter, and asked grandma for nine pence, grandma handed over the money, and the woman finished the conversation with "there you go, you never had a better Chance to learn"

Grandma went home with the wool and needles - and after a lot of struggling and pulling everything back over and again, finally made socks.

From that day to the day he died at 87 years old, my Grandad never again wore a pair of sock bought socks.

I love how most of the crafts we do today came about through necesity. And grandma is in her 90's now, and if it wasn't for poor eyesight and arthritic hands would still be knitting socks today if she could!