It’s common to feel a need to change things, to do something to fill the time, when your spouse dies. Bob Rutherford, an 88-year-old in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, started knitting socks, not by hand, but with his own low-cost sock knitting machines.
The machines, made out of tubing and other parts, can knit up to 90 stitches a second and make tubes that are cut down to sock shape and distributed to homeless people across Canada — more than 10,000 pairs, to be exact.
Rutherford knits with his buddies 92-year-old Glynn Sully, 85-year-old George Slater and Barney Sullivan, who’s a young guy, around age 65.
He says the connection to the group of other knitters keeps him doing it, and that the socks have given his life a purpose.
This is such a great story! I just wish he’d release the instructions for how to make the knitting machines so more people could benefit from them; wouldn’t that be something?
[Photo via CBC News.]
Where I live, Windsor, Ontario, a 9-year old girl, Sarah, began collecting socks for the homeless. I think she is 15 now and still going strong. I have never been homeless but I have suffered sock failure and know how special socks can be!