Mama's green socks and a rug tale

They're done! I finished my green copycat socks last night and I love them. For a while there I wasn't sure because they don't look so good off the foot. But on the foot, I think they're fabulous...and so me. I love that the pattern is subtle and simple yet fanciful and pretty if you take the time to look at them carefully. And they are really comfy to boot. Just right for lemon's birthday ;0)

Pattern: Hello Yarn's cable twist socks
Yarn: Lorna's Laces in 'carol green'
Needles: Size 0 DPNs
As seen on: Grumperina (I totally copied her socks)
Modifications: I cast on 72 stitches and worked in a 7/2 rib working the cable twist pattern on 7 stitches and then purling 2. I made a partridge eye heel flap like Grumperina (did I mention I totally copied her?)

And don't they look so beautiful with my living room rug? They're just the right punch of colour and have totally inspired me to look for some 'carol green' decorative accessories for the living room. I wouldn't have thought about it but I really love the colour combo.

Did I ever tell you about my rug? Buying it was a great shopping experience...probably the best I ever had!

I always knew I wanted to have an authentic persian rug from the time I was a kid. Weird, I know ;0) My sisters are both much older than I and I was still a kid when they got married and had children. They were also a lot cooler to hang around with than my parents so I spent many weekends at their homes, playing or babysitting the kids, renting movies, eating nachos, yada yada yada.

My eldest sister married an Iranian guy (they've been married almost 17 years already!) and he totally changed my family for the better. We were typical pasty white folk living in the suburbs where ethnicity isn't part of anyone's vocabulary. So my sister marrying this guy was just so cool.

He had come to Canada as a refugee when there was a regime change in Iran and had many wonderful stories to tell of his beloved homeland, its long history and rich cultural heritage. I especially enjoyed the stories about the lengths he and his rather liberal family would go to to continue having fun and leading their lives after the regime changed to a strict theocracy where things like booze and music were outlawed for instance. Things like having false compartments in cars to hide radios and music tapes. Or buying and storing 'black market' vodka in gaz cans...

Every once in a while he would take advantage of my gullability but all in all, having him as a brother in law really expanded my world view and made me a much better citizen of the world than if I had never met him.

Okay, really long tangent I know so let's get back to my rug. When my sister and brother-in-law were married, his parents sent them the most beautiful persian rug I have ever seen as a wedding present. It was cream coloured with intricate blue and burgundy designs and my family thought it was too beautiful to put in a room you actually use, especially since it was so light-coloured. But my brother in law didn't see what we were worried about and he was totally right (of course!) and the rug aged so beautifully and looks amazing almost 20 years later and after 2 kids and countless pets. So I knew that when I got married, I wanted a rug too! And I also knew that it was worth the money because of how beautifully they age and how durable they are.

Sooooo. A few weeks after our wedding, Stephen and I happened to be strolling around hand in hand being all lovey dovey on Parc Avenue in Montreal and happened on a bunch of persian rug stores. And that's how we met the delightful Mr. Khan. He was a no pressure carpet dealer (no, really) and just waxed poetic about his love of rugs and how to tell real from fake, hand-made from machine-made, wool and silk fiber from synthetic... He also taught us about the different rug making regions, the different designs and even about how the rug-dealer business works.

He had his employees unroll rugs for us so he could show us what he meant and then we started talking about what we were looking for more specifically and he showed us more rugs. We spent the whole afternoon in his little shop taking it all in. There were 2 rugs that we really liked but they were more expensive than what we were expecting to spend. We were honest about this and he did show us some things in our price range but we kept coming back to these two more expensive rugs. Seeing that we were needing to think this through a bit more, he suggested we take them home and try them out for a while while we consider whether or not we are ready to take a leap and buy one. No pressure. Just take'em home and think it over.

Now I should mention that the rugs were $2,500 each! Plus they were pretty big and we didn't think they would fit in our little honda. He read our minds and asked his employees to show us how compactly they could roll and fold them. So we decided to follow his advice and take them home. Stephen went off to get the car, the store employees proceeded to carefully pack up the two rugs and I continued my chat with Mr. Khan. At one point I asked him if maybe we should start working on the paper work. He was quizzical and asked me what paper work?

Well, I figured if he was going to let us take $5K worth of rugs home with us to suburbia, he might like to know our names? Or our address and phone number? And some credit card info in case we never returned with the rugs? Each time he chuckled and said he didn't need to know any of that and that as a carpet dealer, the most important thing to him was the trust of his customers and that he was willing to trust us first if doing so would earn our trust! I couldn't beleive it! Can you? That's outrageous and yet totally amazing!

We ended up buying one of the rugs with the money we received as wedding gifts. It graces our family room and we use it everyday. It is in the background of most of our family photos and is a constant reminder of our vows and of the well wishes of our friends and family. I can't think of a better way to have spent our gift money. And I'm sure we'll be back for another rug someday, perhaps for a special anniversary...