Crossing the Unknown Country

Chapter 339 Su He Knits a Pair of Socks

Su He smiled and said, "I think so too. Women in my family should all learn to spin yarn, weave cloth, and knit sweaters. They can rely on themselves if they learn this. They can also make their own clothes. It's always good to have many skills."

This is also what Su He saw in an ethnic minority area. Women in every household carry spinning hammers and sit down to spin a piece of thread when they have nothing to do. Over time, their family's clothes are all made by spinning and weaving their own threads. They don't need to buy cloth for their family, and they can also take it out to exchange for money and other necessities of life.

Su He also wanted to make some blended fabrics, a cotton thread and a wool thread, so the sweater would be softer. There are many such blended fabrics now, and they are quite good.

After everyone had spun some yarn, Su He finished spinning with a spinning wheel. Then she went to the kitchen, where someone had already boiled red dye water. She put the yarn in and boiled it for a while. When it looked like it was almost done, she turned off the fire and let the yarn soak in the dye water.

After soaking for an hour, Su He took out a piece of thread and put it on a bamboo pole to dry. When it was half dry, he used a thread crutch to straighten it and continued to dry it until it was completely dry.

During this time, Su He asked her mother to combine the two strands of yarn together to make some thicker wool yarn so that she could knit a thick sweater.

During this process, Su He was anxious and helpless and waited for a whole day.

The next day, Su He got up and looked at the wool first. It was dry and there was no problem. Su He took out the bamboo needles that his father had scraped with a knife and polished with cloth, making them smooth.

That was a complete set from thin to thick according to Su He's request. She stroked the needles happily. This thing was very old-fashioned, thick in the middle and pointed at both ends. A simple two needles could knit a lot of things.

Su He drew out a crochet hook and asked her father to make a set for her. She said she could try this one. Crocheting is very easy as long as there is thread. She wanted to give it a try and teach the people here what she knows.

Su He picked up the thread and moved her two fingers up and down, preparing to knit a pair of socks first. It took Su He about half a day to knit a pair of socks. The red ones she knitted were of course for women to wear. She wanted to wear them first, but she couldn't. Her mother didn't have them, and her grandmother didn't have them either, so she couldn't wear them first.

She handed it to her mother with both hands and asked her to try it on. Her mother first went to get a basin of hot water and washed her feet carefully. Then she took out the socks that Su He had knitted and put them on her feet. Everyone exclaimed that they were so beautiful.

A group of people surrounded Su He Niang and looked at her with envy. They all asked her how she felt about wearing it.

Su He knew that this pair of socks was still a little prickly, after all, they were made of pure wool. But many people here had thick calluses on their feet, so it was not noticeable at all. Su He's feet were all calloused without exception, because he walked a lot and his shoes were hard. The soles of the shoes here were very hard, and the cloth was hammered very solid, so everyone thought they could be worn for two more years.

Su He Niang squinted her eyes happily and said with a smile, "They are very soft and warm. They are more comfortable to wear than cloth socks."

In fact, everyone asks this question, but it is useless. Many people don't wear socks. When they were young, their families were poor and they had no clothes to wear. Their shoes were full of holes. How could they have socks to wear? Many men in the city don't wear socks. Just having shoes is enough.

The Su family only started wearing socks after they had some money. At first, Su He's father and uncle refused to wear them, thinking they were a waste of money. But Su He said that there were a lot of scraps of cloth at home, so it wouldn't cost money to make them, and wearing socks wouldn't wear out the shoes.

It took a lot of persuasion to get the men in the family to wear socks. But at that time, socks were made of cloth, not elastic, and relatively large. They had to be tied around the ankles, otherwise the socks would fall down. When worn on the feet, the feeling was average and not very comfortable.

The socks knitted by Su He are made according to the shape of the feet. They are not bulky at all and they are not uncomfortable when wrapped around the feet.

Some women reached out to touch them, and their envious eyes were so envious that everyone was shouting that they wished they could knit a pair of socks like this.

Su He smiled and said, "Don't panic, everyone. Once we have all the wool spun, you can buy some to knit a pair of socks. It's not that we won't give it to you for free, because we still need to buy wool from Dongjie Country."