My new toy!

It's here at last! A new yarn ball winder from Joann. After hearing about nightmares from knitters that tried to knit directly from a hank without winding it into a ball first, I spent some time learning how to wind a center pull ball by hand. Then I figured, a $23 investment in a ball winder was worth the time I would be spending in winding about 440 yards per hank by hand. So, I bought it, tried it and love it. I don't have a swift so I ended up using a upturned table leg and my foot to keep the yarn stretched. The key is to keep the yarn taut, both at the yarn guide (that metal thing you see) and at the hank to avoid tangles.

The yarn you're seeing is Knitpicks Shadow in Sunset Heather - a lace weight yarn that is about to become a fan and feather scarf for my sister. My first lace project. On size 3 needles!!!


Speaking of needles, I have 3 active projects and 2 on hold. Here are the active ones.

Basic ribbed hat in Lion Homespun (Quartz), size 11 needles - I made this hat first in a different pattern with a ribbed brim and garter body. But it ended up pretty large, so this time I cast on 48 and am sticking with k2p2 ribbing throughout. For my sis to go with her Homespun scarf in the same colorway.

A felted tote in Cascade 220. I'm using this free pattern - http://www.gogetyoursmock.org/TheCocoBagWeb.pdf.

My first attempt at socks using Knitpicks Palette in Blush. I'm not using any one pattern, but rather combining several tutorials I found online. I think I may have made a mistake by choosing to use all 5 needles, but so far I'm not having any trouble with it.

On hold I have a shawl I started in Homespun Baroque back when I still thought Homespun was good value. I'm using Bryspun needles with it which is the absolute wrong combination. Plastic + Acrylic = Squeaking! It gets on my nerves so it's on a shelf until I free up my metal needles to work on it. The pattern is a diamond stitch pattern I converted into a shawl.
The other project on hold is an afghan I'm making in Knitpicks Suri Dream, which is a brushed suri alpaca. It's pretty, soft and easy to work with once you get the hang of it. The roadblock here is the size of the afghan. It's huge and being worked in a garter st (anything fancy is lost in this yarn), so it's much slower than I'd expected.
Happy Tuesday!