I was cold

 A little while ago, the weather here made that mysterious leap from autumn to early winter, and all of a sudden I can’t get warm.  The house can’t get warm, it’s like the heat won’t sink in to it and nothing is cozy. I feel like the light of autumn is golden and warm, and then there’s this shift, and the trees are bare, and the light (what little of it there is) seems thin and blue.   This phase passes.  It’s a temporary thing, like everyone walking around right now when it’s -1 and saying "It’s so cold out".  Come January you’re dreaming of -1, and by March you think that temp is a sign of spring.  What seems like the cruelty of early winter will give way soon to deep winter, with snow, darkness and storms outside, and candles, sparkles and coziness in the house.  You just have to get over the soul crushing hump of accepting another winter, let your inner thermostat remember how to deal with it.

For the moment, I am in phase one.  Huddled under comforters, complaining about the cold, taking long hot baths to try and warm my cold hands and feet,  making soup,  lighting candles for the meagre glow… and knitting extra warm wool socks.

These socks are perfect.  Whenever I’m cold I always think I should knit something. It’s a knitter affliction.  Instead of thinking "I should get a sweater" our first response is casting one on, as though that would help fast enough.  Usually the sweater I cast on to cope with January is finished in June, and that hardly seems helpful, but these bad boys?  Cast on 48 hours ago, and warming my feel last night.  Instant socks.

The yarn is from Solitude Wool, and it’s a kit they call the Dorset Boot Socks. (Solitude makes beautiful breed specific yarns.)  I bought it at Vogue Knitting last January, but it’s been hanging out until the other night when my cold feet and the desperation of early winter prompted me to cast on.

They worked up fast on 3.25mm needles, and I had the first one what seemed like minutes after I thought that I would knit them.  In reality, it was more like a couple of hours, but that’s it. As close to instant socks as I’m going to get. The yarn is yummy and robust, with nice crimp and bounce, and not really what you would call soft, but not scratchy in any way either.  Just warm, real wool, thick and proper – like a bowl of oatmeal.  These socks are so satisfying that it makes me want to order a bunch of those kits and lay them away like fortification against anything winter brings.

I’m still a little cold. Maybe I should make a hat.