Is it just me, or does it happen to everyone else too?

Without fail, the handknit superwash wool socks come out of my dryer with hairs stuck to them.

At least it’s definitely our hair: my DH has dark curly hair, and I have longish red hair. Both of these end up being fairly obvious when stuck to a sock. (And it’s clean hair! because of course it’s just been through the laundry.)

Interestingly, it seems to be just the handknit wool socks that have this magnetic attraction to other hair. DH has a few pairs of commercially made wool socks that he wears for cycling, and I haven’t noticed the same phenomenon on them.

The attraction also seems to be reserved mainly for human hair. We have two cats and two dogs, of various colors: their hairs also end up stuck to many things, and I am sure a fair amount of animal hair goes into the washer, but it does not seem to particularly stick to the socks. Or maybe I am just so used to seeing animal hair on everything, I fail to notice it.

I have noticed that dog hair seems to have become permanently enmeshed in DH’s felted clog slippers, but that’s understandable because (a) they rarely get washed (neither clogs nor dogs, frankly); and (b) he usually wears them in the family room, where the dogs congregate. So he walks around in a fair amount of dog hair. Easily explained.

Yes, I put my handknit socks IN THE DRYER. Yeah, I do. Knitter’s choice. DH wears all his handknit socks often, and I’m pretty much too lazy to hang them or lay them flat to dry. And, there’s the smell of wet wool to contend with. (Though actually, I happen to kind of like the smell of wet wool, in small doses, at least. Nice clean wool, you understand – not stinky wool.)

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of whipping up some cleaning rags out of leftover sock yarn on the ol’ knitting machine, and seeing if they pick up hairs during cleaning as well as they do in the laundry. Perhaps I can harness this force for good, not evil!