Illustration of silhouette of black pine trees against a dark blue sky with a sliver of a white moon and the handwritten text, a poem referred to in Tale of Genji: "If only I could show them to someone who knows, this moon, these flowers, this night that should not be wasted." This is the info. card sent out with THIS NIGHT sock orders and an illustration from the book, A Year in Japan.

I have loved socks since I was a child – I love that they can be both beautiful and useful – and I have long dreamed of designing them. My hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania, was once a thriving hosiery center, and I worked with the wonderful, talented people at the last sock knitting mill left there for about two years to develop what I consider to be the perfect sock: one made with high-quality, US-grown ringspun cotton combined with just a touch of stretch, a slightly wider band that is not too tight yet still stays up, and elegant, graphic designs in a colorful yet refined palette.

My hometown mill was suddenly shut down by its new corporate owners in the spring of 2018. I will always be indebted to the sock expertise and kindness of the folks at the Reading mill. Now, I am very grateful to be working with the very talented people at a very well-run mill in North Carolina.

Much of my inspiration comes from Japanese textiles, which I studied while living in Kyoto, Japan, for a year (I am also an artist and writer), and the name THIS NIGHT comes from a tenth-century Japanese poem I particularly love:

            If only I could show them to someone who knows,
            this moon, these flowers, this night that should not be wasted.

                  – Minamoto Nobuakira, Gosenshu
                     (trans. by Edward G. Seidensticker in The Tale of Genji)

In tribute to my hometown and the people who worked so hard to create THIS NIGHT socks, THIS NIGHT donates 50 cents per pair sold through this website to the Olivet Boys & Girls Club of Reading, PA, a wonderful organization that provides great opportunities and safe, fun spaces for the kids and teens of Reading to go after school and during the summer. And in support of the community where THIS NIGHT socks are now knit, THIS NIGHT is delighted to donate an additional 50 cents per pair sold online to the great Catawba County Partnership for Children, which does a lot of amazing things in the area where my socks are now knit, including running its Imagination Library, which provides free books to more than 5,000 kids in Catawba County.

Thank you very much for looking at these socks and for supporting American manufacturing!

Kate T. Williamson, Designer and Owner, THIS NIGHT