Thanks be to…solmate socks

It doesn’t look like November outside of my window.  Green leaves are holding sunlight like scoops of lemon sorbet.  Russet leaves and bare twigs are bisecting the blue sky into a vast, mottled spiderweb.  As I waved goodbye to a friend leaving from a play date a few moments ago, the air felt warm—really, warm.  In November!—with just a hint of an October chill that makes me long for things like apple cider, wrap sweaters, crackling fires, and mismatched socks.  Socks?  Yes, really.  Socks.

It’s November, despite my five senses contradicting the calendar page.  It’s the month of my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving.  Honestly, who couldn’t love a holiday that’s all about one thing: stuffing.  Stuffing the bird, stuffing family, stuffing yourself.  A holiday dedicated to eating and giving Thanks for life’s numerous blessings?  That’s a holiday that earns my fervent support.  So my posts this month will be a litany of thanks for the great things, big and small, that stuff my life.  So I’ll say it again, thanks be to Socks.

But not just any socks.

Solmate Socks.  The most luxuriously thick, most adorably mismatched, most waited-for-when-the-dryer-dings socks ever.  I first discovered Solmate Socks one summer vacation on Edisto Island a year and a half ago while browsing the eclectic wares of the always-interesting, always-dependable With These Hands Gallery of American Crafts.  There they were: snuggled up together just begging to be carried out in a bag and immediately wrapped around my feet, flip-flops no obstacle. Solmate Socks.

Constructed of thick, knobby, yet soft yarns created by recycling cotton scraps of things like t-shirts, Solmate Socks are just the thing for November feet.  My feet are quite happy snug inside a pair of Tulip Socks.  Since my sock fervor has spread to other dearly loved feet in my life, I’m happy to report that my mother’s toes find happy homes in Fall Foliage Socks while my mother-in-law can be seen frequently sporting a pair of Crocus Socks.  While the individual socks are not mirror images of one another like the other bores of the sock world, the Solmate pair matches in design and color combination.  With Solmate Socks, it’s just a little easier telling your right foot from your left.  (Not that I have trouble telling my right from my left.  That problem is so two days ago.)

Little feet find happy homes in Solmate Socks as well.  The originator of the Solmate fever in our family, Little Friend was the first happy recipient of a “pair” of mismatched socks.  Socktinis, Solmate Socks for babies, come in sets of five.  For those of you with math issues, (Not that I have trouble with simple math.  That problem is so two minutes ago)  that’s two pairs plus a third (fifth?) wheel.  With the same clever color combinations as the adult socks, Socktinis coordinate (the best that mismatched socks can) with just about any outfit.

As if the socks weren’t cool enough on their own, they come with a pretty great back story, too.  It’s a story of one woman, Marianne Wakerlin, aka The Sock Lady, who knitted over 100 pairs of socks for family and friends.  Just for fun.  (Sheesh.)  Then she got the brilliant idea to offer up her creativity and quality to those of us not quite lucky enough to earn a family and friends invitation to her Thanksgiving table.  We may not be family, but we can still sport a “matching” pair of socks from the small town of Strafford, Vermont.  A family run knitting mill now produces the Solmate Sock line with environmentally sound practices, making it safe and ecologically responsible to don a pair of Solmates.

I know it’s a small thing, this giving thanks for socks.  Especially when I have so many big things on my list of gratitude.  But some days, a small thing like socks can also be a big thing.  When I’ve had a stressful day of house cleaning, meal making, and nose wiping (Little Friend’s), and I finally stretch out in front of the fire with a mug of tea (because my throat is suspiciously scratchy), I can’t do much to make the big stresses of life (dirty house, unpaid bills, busy schedule, impending cold) disappear.  Yet when I glance down at my feet clad in my Tulip Socks, I have to smile.  And that one smile alleviates a world of stress.  Seems silly, but it’s important to me.  This November, I say, “Thanks be to Solmate Socks!”

November really is here, and that chilly weather ain’t going anywhere for at least a few months.  High time you treated your toes to a pair of Solmate Socks.  Or, for a really creative, really good holiday gift idea, sign up your most beloved ones for the Solmate Sock of the Month Club.