Trish Knits.com

Tonight I decided to be brave and try to wind one of my other Lisa Souza yarn hanks into a ball. My daughter gave me that, “Mom, you’re NUTS!” look as I began to drag out the swift, knowing full well my troubles from the last week. But I knew that the hanks from this one particular colorway of yarn seemed to be more tightly wrapped than the others, so I figured my chances of success would have to be pretty good. I was right.

My kids both found my new Strauch Jumbo Ball Winder to be a wondrous machine, and enjoyed immensely taking turns at the crank. I’ll have to get pictures of them doing this next time since they seemed to enjoy it so much. I am now happily swatching for my Elizabeth Zimmermann February Baby Sweater from Knitter’s Almanac. (Note to self: I’m using the 3 mm Harmony needles for my swatch. I can’t tell yet, but I think they’re going to be too big. I’m a loose knitter. Wonder how many repeats of the stitch pattern I’ll have to add to make the sweater fit an actual baby?)

New Baby Knits Book

BabyKnits Hats & Booties–by Edie Eckman, Bonnie Franz, and Debby Ware. Well, it’s new to me, anyway. I bought it yesterday while at my knitting group at Borders. I especially love the hat and bootie set on the cover, but as a mom of people who used to be actual babies? I’m not sure what I think about the ribbon yarn in terms of safety. I’d probably substitute with icords or something. That said, there are some SERIOUSLY cute patterns in here! Definitely worth a look if you want to knit something cute, and maybe a little fun, for baby.

Is there some magic trick to winding yarn into a ball that I am missing?

The last several hanks I’ve tried to work with have been anything but neat. I’m always nervous when I take off the wrapper and untwist the hank and the lovely long loop of yarn is revealed. Lately, every hank I’ve gotten (different manufacturers and dyers even) has been messy on the inside side and all twisted up.

Forget trying to wind it up when it gets like this on my ball winder. I have to wind slowly, weaving the ball under and over the loops of yarn on the swift as I go. Inevitably, it gets hopelessly twisted at some point, and I wind up with a mess. It depends on the hank whether it happens near the beginning of the winding (which can take me days or weeks to fix) or near the end, which takes most of a day, even so.

It’s now nearly 5 p.m. here in Maryland. I’ve been winding this ball since about 1:00. I’m getting tired of this job always being such a job. Why can’t the hanks just be neatly wound, so that they ball up in minutes with the ball winder and swift? Why does this have to take all day?

Please don’t tell me it’s just me. I can’t handle hearing that right now. I’ve got to go lie down.

Happy Birthday, John! We’ll celebrate later, when the kids are asleep and my head is clear again.

Signing out from yarn hell….