I’ve got balls!!!

Today was a very knitty day indeed. I spent this afternoon at my parents’ house with my mum and 3 other knitters at our first ever knitting group meeting. I worked on my sock and taught mum how to turn a heel, and we talked about sheep and pigs and all sorts of things. Then I made a yarn swift out of meccano.

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with the time it takes to wind balls from skeins. I got a ball winder with my spinning wheel, though it didnt have a bobbin with it…so i discovered a place that sold just the bobbins on ebay, and that made my ball-winding life considerably easier. Unfortunately it either needs two people to do, one of whom gets achy arms, or I need to contort myself into strange positions with the skein wrapped around my knees or neck or something. After stumbling across a blog showing a homemade swift made out of some kids building toy that i’ve never heard of (i’ll add a link to it if i find it again), I realised i could easily make one from meccano…which i knew dad has a case of in the cupboard. It only took about 10 minutes to assemble, and it works wonderfully. So I’ve just spent half an hour or so winding some of my stash into balls.

 

 left to right, top to bottom: Angels and Elehants Sock yarn, shetland wool, colourways candyfloss (1 ball), holly berry (2 balls). Handspun from rovings: red and green laceweight, blue and grey laceweight, pink and purple DK (two balls). Handspun from norfolk horn fleece, green DK, pinky aran, and pink chunky.

And as if that wasn’t exciting enough, I finished the socks for my brother. I found this awesomely orange corriedale roving in my LYS, and decided i would spin it and make some socks for him, as orange is his favourite colour. It was the first time i’d spun anything finer than DK, but it turned out pretty even, and the socks feel nice and soft…though I was cursing his size 9 feet by the end, i’ve never made socks any bigger than a 6 before, and this seemed to take aaaages.

Oh, and here’s a couple of other (clicky) pics of the swift (one with monkey’s head in, as she’s found the whole process fascinating). If anyone reading wants any more info as to how it’s made, just give me a shout, though really it’s pretty self explanatory.