blue birthday socks

My friend Danby sent me this cool amazing pair of socks for my birthday. The amazing thing is that she knitted the socks. how can anyone knit socks? Oh I know knitters do it all the time. I have a long history of knitting...or should that be a long history of not-knitting? I taught myself to knit from the World Book Encyclopedia. I knitted a long blue scarf. Never purled just knitted. That was in high school. Then after college I knitted another scarf--stripes of many colors--and sent it to now-husband Tom who was living in Amsterdam at the time. Then right after college I went with my mother to a knitting class when i was home visiting because she wanted to learn to knit. I enrolled with her but never knitted anything but my mother knit these little sock slippers. I think she knitted about two million pairs. We all got them every Christmas. They were great for putting on and slip sliding down a hardwood floor hallway. sweet Granny's slipper socks. Then in seminary a knitting group was formed. I think I spent all semester trying to cast on. I did finally manage to knit my daughter-in-law Natalie a scarf but it was a challenge--to me and to everyone in the group who had to help me continuously. I am sure the group finally asked my friend Vickie to remind me of the passage from Corinthians about all of us having different gifts and maybe knitting didn't fall in my gift category. So i was a seminary knitting group drop out. Then it became a ministry to knit prayer shawls. I thought, I can do this. It's just an oversized scarf. Dear Jane in my parish did the casting on for me. All I had to do was follow the very very simple pattern and knit. The stitches didn't seem to stay the same count on any row...the unfinished shawl sits in a canvas bag somewhere in this house. The good thing about being a failed knitter is that you are absolutely awed when you see what others have knitted. And when you get a pair of turquoise blue (the color of the sea around Iona on some days) socks (with a cable stitch design!!!!!!!) you are absolutely awed and thrilled and sure you have the most brilliant talented friends in the whole wide world (of that I am sure).So now I have this wonderful pair of handknitted socks. What a great gift! How wonderful it is to have dear friends!