Without a thought, I picked up my knitting about two weeks ago. It had been tucked away in a storage ottoman for several months. I am making a simple afghan of squares that I will sew together with yarn. Each square takes me about an hour and a half to make, so I can get at least one done while watching a movie on DVD.

I know why I hadn’t been knitting. During the summer, I don’t want to pick up wool, or even fluffy acrylic. I tend to sit outside on the deck or porch after dinner, during the warmer months. Although some people might knit outdoors, I don’t. I guess I am busy doing other things in the summer, because I could work on projects involving cotton or silk yarns. But I don’t.

Knitting for me is a winter thing.

I don’t know if it was the sound of the furnace going on that prompted me to take out my afghan squares. Maybe it was the fact that it was 6:30 p.m. and pitch black outside. Or that snow was forecast for the weekend. Yes, snow, and not just for the western mountains. The map showed a total whiteout right to the coast.

Suddenly, I wanted to hold some woolly yarn.

My husband, Paul, and I were traveling in the countryside on a fine fall day recently (before any snow was predicted). I saw a funky yarn shop, and knew I wanted to go in. It had been months since I added to my yarn “stash,” as knitters call the piles of skeins we have purchased for “future projects.” At least twice a year, I proclaim I have enough wool to last me the rest of my life. In between, I frequent yarn stores.

The banisters on the stairs leading to the shop were wrapped with yarn. In the lobby of the building, plastic skeletons wore knitted finery as they awaited Halloween. I walked into the store and was greeted by a spectrum of color.

Here was another reason I prefer to knit in winter. The dazzling summer sun, the hot pink of impatiens, the purple glory of hydrangeas — the pumpkin skein that was screaming at me from a wall display would just blend into the riotous rainbow that is summer.

But in the already fading autumn afternoon, I saw, on shelves and in baskets, the colors of the Maine coast, of Monet’s garden at Giverny, of a verdant Vermont pasture, a gaily striped circus big top, a swirling skirt that a fortune-teller might wear.

Any and all would enliven a cold day spent snowbound in a landscape of white.

My reverie was broken as another customer entered the shop. She wanted to learn how to make socks. That is a good winter project, I mused, except that turning those heels can be tricky. Since I like to knit while I watch movies, I try to keep it simple.

I remember that my mother, who taught me how to knit, had made socks for my father when they were courting. It almost killed her (and their relationship, I suppose). Mom prevailed, however, and apparently Dad was quite pleased with the result, as he soon proposed.

Much later, mom passed on a booklet from the 1950s called “Knitting Is So Relaxing!” I fell over laughing when I saw it. “What?” she asked.

“The socks!”

“Oh, yes, the socks. They almost killed me.”

“I know!”

I’ve made Paul a few hats and scarves. The best one is a red stocking style hat. It makes him look like a Smurf. In fact, I think he was out walking one of our dogs one day last winter when some wise guy yelled out a car window, “Hey, Papa Smurf!”

To his credit, this has not prevented him from wearing it.

The other woman in the yarn shop was explaining herself to the clerk. “I don’t snowmobile, you see,” she said. “So I need something to do in the winter.”

Wow. I had not thought the choices for spending the winter in Maine were so black and white. Had she not thought of ice climbing? Reading? Extreme camping? Making fudge? Practicing for an Olympic biathlon event? Scrapbooking? Bobsledding? Taxidermy? I know: How about my absolute non-favorite, snowshoeing?

At the same time, I had to admire her determination. Winter was coming, and she was going to knit socks. I silently wished her well, and refrained from warning her that I almost didn’t make it into this world because of my mother’s courageous, yet nerve-racking, four-needle battle with the infamous turning of the heel.

I was ready to check out. I had found some beautiful Japanese-made yarn called “Silk Garden.” Its variegated strands of dense blues, rich purples and pale greens would make a beautiful scarf that I could use to brighten up my outfits and my moods on the darkest days of the year. And I couldn’t let that pumpkin sit on the shelf. I suddenly wanted to make a hat that would provide a startling contrast to my black winter coat. Orange, a smoky blue, the palest gray.

“I love these colors,” the clerk exclaimed as I placed my choices on the counter.

“I’ll enjoy knitting with them as the snow falls,” I said. My colors will take me through winter, a gentle reminder of the light that lies on the far side of the season.

First, though, I’ve got to finish that afghan. Just in case the power goes out.

Liz Soares welcomes email at lsoares@gwi.net.

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