Pumpkin Monkeys

Honest to God, these socks took like a year.  It's embarrassing.  I mean, I'm less embarrassed than Helen should be considering this is a throwdown where she didn't even start her part of the throwdown.  (Sorry, Helen, I had to call you out so I could feel better about myself for taking over a year to knit a pair of socks.  Using my current knitting timeline, the dishcloth I just started should be finished when N graduates from college.)

 

These socks were made for my mother-in-law.  When I first met the woman, she was merely the mother of a friend.  Then, years later, I started dating her son, and I wanted her to like me!  (Luckily, I was one of those children/teens taught to respect and be polite to people who were older than me, so I hope she never disliked me prior to my dating P.)  When, P and I got married, she invited me in a roundabout way to call her mom, which I basically and stupidly ignored.  

See, over the years, she's helped me to cultivate my hobbies such as knitting and photography.  If I express an interest in something like scrapbooking, she gets me a scrapbooking kit.  She asks me about what I'm interested in and tells me about her own interests and she has a never ending list of interests and hobbies.  Since my own hobby list is somewhat extensive, I love this!

More than a year ago, our family learned that she has a pretty bad health problem, and I think it quietly devastated me.  It took me a while, but I realized, I did love this woman in much the same way I loved my own mom.  (In fact, our relationship is much less antagonistic in that my mother-in-law doesn't try to take the raising of my child out from under me.) This means I did something for her that I would not do for my own mother, I knit her a pair of silk and wool socks in a beautiful colorway and in a Cookie A pattern.  (My own mom gave some of the socks I gave her to her cat as a chew toy.)

I like how these came out and they were washed prior to the giving so don't feel bad about me wearing them for the pictures! Truthfully, they look silly on me because I've just learned that I have silly sized feet, while my mother-in-law has normal sized feet.

When I gave them to her, my mother-in-law was tearing up which made me want to tear up. To be fair, though, excessively sentimental magazine ads make me want to tear up during my seventh month of pregnancy. I hope they keep her feet warm and remind her that someone loves her very much. Also, she first thought they were mittens and mentioned how she needed a pair. Anyone have a good mitten pattern?