Tasty cakes

First off, a pic of my socks in progress. The Show Off Stranded Socks. An easy 4 row repeat to remember. I'm using the Socks That Rock mediumweight and they are coming out quite big but they will make good slouchy socks I think.


While we were at Woolfest, Colin bought me a swift (shhh, I don't know about it 'til my birthday) so that he doesn't have to sit with his hands held out wrapped in skeins of yarn while I wind them into balls. He also got me a ball winder stick (technically known as a Nostepinne) which you wind the yarn onto by hand (link = YouTube video) to make a centre pull ball. I decided last week to have a go on a 20mm knitting needle. It takes ages to wind a ball onto it. It'll be fine for left over bits of yarn in shortish lengths but I decided to have a look for a wool winder.

I found this one second hand on ebay and it arrived yesterday.


I couldn't wait to give it a go but as I don't have a swift (nudge, nudge, wink, wink.) I used a couple of balls I'd already wound by hand. And look at them now........

I think the technical name for these is cakes, and the most tasty looking non-edible cakes they are. It was so quick!! My skeins are going to wind so fast. Wheeee.

Last Tuesday evening was Borders Knitters night. We had a total of 21 people there this time, which seems to be about the number we have each month. Another 3 new members turned up. I don't know what we would do if all the people who have ever come all turned up at once, there would be over 30 of us and I think Borders would have a fit! As it is, we are going to be going fortnightly probably as of August.

In my last post I mentioned some yarn that I couldn't show. That was because I got this for Becca and she hadn't seen it yet.



I wasn't happy that the yarns I picked for her at Woolfest were sufficiently turquoise, which was what she had asked me to get, so I got these from Scandinavian Knitting Design. 2 balls of Alpaca and 1 150g ball of Kauni Effect. She did take one of the sock yarns I got and the bluey skein of Manos Silk Blend from Woolfest too.

Poor Becca is a bit poorly at the mo and is off work and very bored, so I popped over to see her on Monday. We have decided to have a knitalong for a Booga Bag, using the Kauni Effect. This is my colour

This is one of those patterns that EVERYONE on ravelry has made, so I succumbed in the end. We knitted some swatches to see how they would felt and bunged them into Becca's washing machine at 40 degrees. Not a lot happened so she put hers back in at 60. After doing this 3 more times she eventually got a decent felted fabric. I went home and put mine in again at 60 and it felted straight away. So we have concluded that her newer machine is far too gentle and we need mine because it has a much more vigorous agitation action. When the bags are done we will chuck them in my machine at 60.

Colin is getting a new car, a Mazda 3. I quite like the Mazda 2 for myself but I'll wait a few more months I think. He is picking it up tomorrow and then later on we are going to the National Exhibition of Wildlife Art preview evening. We got invited because we bought some pictures last year. We will have to restrain ourselves I think!