My mother gave me a special gift for my birthday recently, two works of art designed to adorn the foot-al region of my person: a pair of her famous Turkish socks. Well, famous in our own family, anyway… traditionally she has only made these for the males in the family so I feel pretty honoured and privileged to be the first female recipient of a pair; cough cough, did I hear gender privilege anyone? Ahem…
Putting my Mum’s creations here on the ol’ blog is always a humbling experience, as it just highlights to the max the vast superiority of her handiwork and creativity to my own. I usually turn out socks of the very basic kind, true I choose yummy colours that I love but there is no difficulty level in that, and my socks themselves are pretty utilitarian in style. When I lay eyes on Mum’s work I feel dead boring in my own output. sigh
The pattern, as in decoratively, of these socks is created in the fair isle knitting method, that is carrying the unused colour loosely at the back of the work and bringing it forward when it is needed, and the pattern, as in construction-wise, of these socks is the Turkish method of knitting socks. That is, starting from the toe and knitting up the foot to end at the top “hole” that you stick your foot in. This method is the opposite from my usual preferred way of sock knitting, the English method, starting at the top and finishing at the toe. Knitting socks in the Turkish method of course has the huge advantage which is that you can knit contentedly away, making each sock exactly the same length until you have used up your available wool… and not run the risk of running out of wool halfway down the foot section, a terrifying possibility with the English method.
But I digress; I know from experience that knitting one’s own socks is a passion reserved for just the initiated few; so instead of me dwelling on the finer points of sock manufacture, please instead admire Mum’s work above…
On a side note; modelling socks, definitely my favourite. You may not be surprised that I am kinda low on my modelling mojo. However socks… well! No need to worry about a bad hair day, weird facial expressions and who knows (or cares) what hideousness I am actually wearing elsewhere on my person? My feet are looking beautiful, so yay!
Socks; handknit by my mother using 8 ply yarns
