Why knit socks? Let me tell you!

By Meg Dedolph

Friends, I love knitting socks. They are the perfect mix of meditative knitting and excitement for me. There’s the tedium of the cuff - but then! A heel and gusset decrease with those nifty diagonal lines! And next, the slog through the foot until … the toe! And you get to ride this fiber-fueled roller coaster twice!
I was actually surprised to discover people knit shawls and sweaters with fingering weight yarn, which I have to remember isn’t called “sock yarn.” 

We especially love Smooshy Cashmere, Keenan Sock, Pinta and Beartooth for socks

In honor of the occasion, here are my top 10 reasons - in no particular order - why you should learn to knit socks.

1. They are super portable and small. They’re the ideal summer and travel knitting project. I can fit everything I need into a little project bag and I’m not draping a giant wool shawl over my lap in the sunshine.
2. Socks are good for experimenting. You can try out different stitch patterns on the leg and instep. You can make socks with different colored toes and heels. You can make socks with all your scraps of sock yarn.
3. Socks let you play with color. Do you love orange, but don’t like the way it looks next to your face? Put it on your feet. 
4. Do you like to wear Birkenstocks or clogs? When the weather cools off, funky wool socks will let you wear your warm weather footwear - and enjoy those summer memories - a little bit longer.
5. Once you learn how to turn a heel, you’re going to feel like the smartest person on the planet. It’s a real self-esteem boost  to look at a neatly knit heel and think, “I made that!”
6. It’s only about 10,491 stitches per short sock, according to my math. Hardly anything.
7. Self. Striping. Yarn.
8. When you’ve knit one sock, you’ve knit them all. You can go top down or toe up or sole out, or something that hasn’t even been discovered yet, but once you’ve knit one sock, you can continue knitting that same type of sock for a very long time, changing up colors and stitch patterns to keep it interesting. 
9. Buying sock yarn is fun. Most socks take one skein, so now you have something to do with all those beautiful one-skein purchases in your stash.
10. Some archeologists think that the first knitted garment was a sock, made somewhere in Egypt more than 900 years ago. Knitting socks ties knitters together over centuries and across cultures.