Sweater Weather

August is a funny month. Daytime temperatures can be breathtakingly hot. We've had a run of 30 degree days like nobody's business this year, hot August days indeed. But at night, even at the end of the first week of August, you can smell the difference in the night air. The nights cool off, the dew lays thick over the lawns and decks around the yard. August is the harbinger of Autumn.

I realized that this morning. It was 6:30 a.m. and it was dark out. Too dark to read, too dark to sit out and sip a coffee, too dark to do anything other than sit and say, 'its awfully dark out'. Evenings still have the feel of summer with their long twilights, and warm summer air, but the mornings? The mornings are fully fall.

It isn't just me with this feeling. I see the difference in the people at the store. Wrist warmer kits are fair walking out the door these days as we all pretend that it isn't a mitten, its just a little something to tuck their hands into, that mittens are still months away, that we have tons of time. People are still looking at shawl designs, but they have left lace and are looking for something else. Time and again, I hear people saying, oh that won't be warm enough, I'd like something in a heavier yarn. For months the high traffic in store samples has been the little shortie scarves, and the light lacy looks, but right now the object of desire and admiration is the well thrummed mitten. Everyone is trying them on and admiring. And sweaters. We are all looking at sweaters, looking at sweater yarn, thinking about what sort of style we are going to wear this year. Big warm and bulky, we don't care, we are just craving the warmth even if the days heat shows 25 C on the thermometer.

The back of summer is broken, and in hearts all across this grand land, it is fall. In the hearts of Canadian knitters, in the middle of hot August days, and the fading blooms of summer meadows, August is sweater weather.