A ball of sock yarn seemed an inadequate gift to give my Mum for Mother’s Day.

Hmmm…

My Mum, an expert knitter of several decades, recently rediscovered knitting socks on four needles. A skill she first learnt as a child in school in wartime England.

After a celebratory “Mum’s day” roast dinner, while I was showing her how to Kitchener stitch, Mum told Ben and I about her learning to knit…

During the WW2, it was your patriotic duty to knit for servicemen. Everybody had knitting in their hands. Mum and countless little girls of the era, were taught to knit and put to work making “Sea Boot Stockings” for the Navy.

Mum said these were made with coarse, horrible, oiled wool that left your hands greasy.  What made it worse was that they were long, boring and you didn’t have your own pair to knit! When you had your “arts and crafts lesson” you just picked up a half knit sock and carried on with someone else’s knitting. Poor Mum – She didn’t even get the satisfaction of seeing her own finished creation 🙁

Sea Boot Stockings were meant to be worn inside Wellington boots with the cuff turned over the top of the welly and left in the boot – normal socks were worn too so the sailors had a double layer of  sock on their feet.

These are the beasties..

These don’t look much “fun” to knit…

There is an original pattern available free online here if you are tempted!

http://grandmotherspatternbook.com/?p=556

So what did I give my knitterly Mum for Mother’s day?

The idea was “Everything you need for a relaxing afternoon”…

I came up with this little lot 🙂

Yes, That is a packet of teabags…

So there was pretty Opal sock yarn, nice bamboo needles (I knew Mum only had slippy metal ones), yummy chocolates, hand-cream (to care for her knitting “tools”), a packet of tea bags (Mum is a serial tea drinker!) and(because Mum was struggling with a badly translated German pattern that came with a kit) a copy of the plain Regia sock pattern I make routinely – you can download the pattern here for free from Wool Warehouse 🙂

Free Regia Sock Pattern

Of course, I didn’t dump the gifts on the carpet like that for Mum. Mum gifts must be beautifully wrapped!

First each item wrapped in tissue…

More fun to open like this…

Then arranged in a beautiful bag 😀

That looks more “gifty”!

There was much fun and hilarity opening all the packets and Mum was pleased – especially with  the tea bags!

I received a text from Mum yesterday – she’s completed her first sock and Kitchener stitched the toe! Well done Mum!