Ball Winder and Swift

The ball winder and swift may be the greatest invention of mankind (or woman kind as the case may actually be). On Saturday, after an all day s'nb at The Wellesley Needlepoint Collection (who allows me to hand out even though I have been knitting and not needlepointing (after the holidays I will have to make sure to bring my needlepoint to the group)) I was given the chance to borrow one of these wonderful, fabulous, glorious items. The prospect of winding by hand 1,350 yards of laceweight yarn was not something I was looking forward to. Can you imagine how long that would take? The mind shudders at the thought.

I awoke on Sunday morning at about 6:30 a.m. (this was not my choice, Isis didn't give me an opportunity to sleep in, after all she needed food immediately, and there was always the rest of the day to sleep, right?) After taking care of those who were immediately going to die from starvation (i.e. Isis) I set up the winder and swift and settled in for what I though would be hours of winding the little crank. The remaining 6 skeins of my mom's yarn wound fairly quickly, but the real test was still to come. Before starting to wind my Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud (approx 440 yds) and my new laceweight merino (approx 1,350 yds) I popped a dvd with Desperate Housewives into my laptop and settled in. I was shocked, SHOCKED when I finished both of them in less than one episode! I am SO getting myself one of these! To the North End knitters, if anyone has yarn that needs to be wound, if you want to come by my place tomorrow after s'nb, bring your yarn and we can wind.

I was able to make a great deal of progress on projects this weekend. I now have 4 active projects on the needles (I also have a couple of inactive projects but we won't go there).
1. I started another shawl, this one knit in the round. After winding all that merino, and buying a new book, I couldn't help myself. I started Sunday night. This is the Shetland Tea Shawl from A Gathering of Lace.
2. My sock is now a couple of inches into the foot. The gusset decreases are done. I don't think I will want to make more men's socks using size 0 needles, it just creeps along at a snail's pace. Also I am almost through with this skein of yarn. Thanks to Lissy for ordering me another skein, I think that these socks will require 3 to finish.
3. My mom's cardigan is FLYING. In this picture you can see that I have split the front sides from the back. After taking the picture (this am) I finished up with the left front and started on the right front. This should be done well before xmas.
and 4. my VK shawl. It is coming along. It is one of my travel projects, my mom's sweater being the other. Therefore, I am not speeding with it, but it is moving at a fair pace I suppose.