Iowa man spreads holiday cheer through mini stockings

NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa — Preparing to leave his North Liberty home on a winter’s day, Bob Randolph fills his pockets with miniature hand-knitted stockings.

He’s become accustomed to giving them to “untold” amounts of people he runs into: kids playing down the street, residents and caretakers at his mother’s assisted living home, churches in town and patients at the children’s hospital. He’s careful to not leave out the “the guy behind the meat counter,” whose daughter might like one, “the gal behind the desk” at physical therapy or the folks at the dentist’s office, either.

“If you see the little kids when they get one, it’s pretty special,” Randolph said. “Especially in the last year with the pandemic going on, if you can put a smile on someone’s face, I think that’s a good thing to do.”

Randolph’s mother, Margaret, taught him to knit and sew when he was growing up in Anamosa. Now 63, he picked up the skill again after spending nearly 30 years working at a factory job.

He came away from the decades of manual labor with injuries to his neck and shoulders, 13 surgeries, and plenty of time on his hands.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing to have something to occupy your time. It keeps me busy and it keeps me happy. In today’s world, that’s major,” Randolph said.

Now he gets to work sitting in a cozy brown living room chair with a row counter hanging around his neck. Surrounding him are reminders of his family of eight siblings, like blankets and slippers knitted by his mother and sisters, and about 50 skeins of yarn.

To his left and right are embroidery needles, scissors and crochet hooks, plus bells and buttons to adorn each stocking. There’s also special tape waiting to be wrapped around his calloused fingers, which get sore from gilding the needles — some the width of a toothpick — through so many loops of yarn.

“I have to remind myself, go slow,” Randolph said of the tiniest stockings, which look small in palm of his hand. “If you drop a stitch there, it’s terrible to try and pick up or redo.”

Each stocking takes four to five hours depending on the size of the needle. He’s memorized the pattern after creating an estimated 600 of them over the past three to four years, some to gift and some to sell.

Randolph has also created hats and scarves for plastic bottle snowmen made by children at a local library, and full-sized stockings to send overseas with a local church. To say thank you for what she taught him, he sewed new curtains for his mother’s kitchen; he’s also made purses for his sisters and “bag bags,” to hold plastic bags in the kitchen, for every member of the family.

This Christmas, he looks forward to playing Shanghai rummy and making jigsaw puzzles with his family. And knitting.

“I’ll keep doing these until I get tired of it,” Randolph said. “Right now it seems to bring too much joy.”