Socks, Bags, and Family

I’m obviously in the groove with knitting socks, and spent a nice sunny morning stitching up the side seam on my burgundy socks. (My socks are knitted on two needles with a side seam, can’t cope with little pointy sock needles).  I used my favourite bodkin for this task, although I have no idea where it came from.  It’s been in my pin container since time immemorial, it seems, and does a great job  of stitching up knitted items.

Stitching up socks with my bodkin

I’ve knitted two pairs of socks in this yarn.  One for me and one for a birthday gift, do hope she likes them when the time comes.  Luckily they are all done in plenty of time.  Now I can get on with knitting another pair of socks each for the grand daughters, they went on the internet with me and selected their own colour for their new socks. 

One pair for me, and one pair for her

Draw string bags for Foster Hope children have been on the agenda too.  This time I chose some fabric suitable for boys as well, and I’m sure a girl will enjoy the black cat bag.

Bags for Foster Hope children

And I made a new draw string peg bag for the caravan, to replace a rather tatty one which as past it’s best.  I had just enough of the grey caravan fabric, and it turned out quite well, I thought.  I don’t do laundry on trips if we are only away for the weekend, of course, but longer trips of a week or two send me off to the laundromat.

Peg bag for the caravan

We attended a family birthday party last week in Wainuiomata, to celebrate my younger sister Karla’s 65th birthday.  I can remember the night she was born at home, she was several weeks early and came with a rush, as we found out later.  My older sister and I (12 and 11 years old) were woken up with our mother calling out to us.  With no phone in the house, we had to run up the road in our dressing gowns and slippers in the dead of night, knock loudly on our neighbour’s door to wake her up, and get her to phone for an ambulance.  Which finally arrived and whisked mother and baby away to hospital.  No wonder it was a night to be remembered!  I’ve got no idea what happened then to us two girls, a neighbour must have taken care of us until our mother came back home from hospital I expect.

Me with Karla

Birthday Cake

Several hours later it was time to head back to Levin.  But not before we drove around Wainuiomata to see all the changes since we were last there.  And I wanted to check out my very first house, we moved in to “Nappy Valley” as the place was called in the late 60s.  Back then, house prices were relatively affordable for young couples who were prepared to work hard, and we got a Government funded house loan, and cashed in the  Family Benefit.  We had two pre-school children, both of us were working, and my hubby at the time had an evening job as well.  We moved in with no carpets or curtains, and second hand everything.  I came home from full time work, (no car so bus and train ride each way),  collected the children, made the meal, put them to bed, then sat and sewed curtains each night.  Difficult, of course, but we were young, and we managed.   I had to stop and take a photo of that very first house, wonder what the neighbours thought when a strange lady jumped out of the car with her camera! 

My first home