Seven Reasons to Knit Wool Socks in June

Okay, I've had this post written for days and was just trying to find a few minutes to snap a picture of the socks. At least it isn't a time-sensitive thing...you don't know how many posts I've abandoned because they were superceded by events.

1. The enchantment of self-striping yarn. I'm getting bolder about grabbing colorways that have several colors plied together- I have no idea what they're going to look like until I knit them, but I've always loved the result. Aren't they pretty?



2. They're small. The raincoat that I wear as my top layer in cooler months has capacious pockets, suitable for carting around any number of smallish projects- mittens, hat, scarf- even a sweater sleeve. In summer.. um, not so much. I don't carry a purse, and while I do quite often grab a small bag for knitting, it's really hard to compete with socks for compactness.

3. Air-conditioning. Last year, my office was moved from one part of the factory to the other. The old office had perfectly adequate AC, the new office- not so much. Being a known troublemaker, I cornered our maintenance guy and said, 'okay, sport, what's the issue here?' Turned out the AC unit was so old that parts of it were falling off or disintegrating into rust flakes when they tried to work on it. After that, all it took was pointing out that 'barely functioning' could become 'non-functioning' without advance notice, and that we have a lot of expensive lab equipment that requires climate-control. (It's possible that I may have threatened to whine, too- I don't do well once the temperature starts approaching 90 °F / 32 °C.) It took a year to get it through the capital budget, but this spring, a crane came by and dropped a brand-new AC unit on our roof. Result- the office is now freezing. I love it. Today I'm wearing my heavy wool socks and a suit jacket over a long-sleeved shirt, happy as a clam (if clams wore wool socks). (Though I'm thinking I may have to finally get around to knitting myself that pair of fingerless mitts as well!)

4. Christmas is coming. I know that this is true year-round, but in summer it's easier to squirrel away a few pairs of socks without getting covetous looks from members of my family. (Not easy, you understand, just easier.) As for why wool, rather than warmer-weather fibers...well, nine months of the year in NH, wool is perfectly wearable. And sometimes in the other three months as well (see reason #3).

5. The stash has a lot of sock yarn at the moment, due to a splurge earlier in the year, plus various sock yarn accidents in yarn stores. I only just barely avoided yet another one at the charming yarn store in Newport, when my husband adroitly reminded me that we needed to leave to make a tour time. I was hesitating because we were in the middle of walking around and I didn't want to carry the yarn around all day. But I'd have talked myself into it given a little more time...anyway, having a lot of yarn is a good reason to knit more socks...and knitting a lot of socks is a good excuse for buying more sock yarn. (I realize this is a circular argument.)

6. They are relatively quick, at least compared to a sweater or afghan. (What 100 projects challenge? I'm not listening. *sticks fingers in ears.* La-la-la. )

7. Because I wanna.