The BIG Wind Up

Ok, so I had this kick-ass post about one of my current WIPs all ready and roaring to go for today. Then I deleted it. Yeah...don't stay up 'til 3am and think you can 'clean up' your blog drafts when you're all bleary-eyed, cause you'll definitely do something that you don't want to do. Like delete a post that you spent a good hour writing and was ready to publish. Oi vey.

Instead, while I re-write that post I'm going to share with you what I did a few nights ago. Nothing exciting. Just winding yarn. Did I mention that the yarn was a Wollmeise Lacegarn skein? Yeah, it was. Not only is it lace weight, but we're talking 1740 yards worth of yarn. All in one skein. All in one go. If you're not familiar with how big a skein of Wollmeise lace is, I took a photo of it next to a "normal" skein of yarn (it's SweetGeorgia Yarns Tough Love Sock in the Riptide colourway, for those of you who are wondering):

Still can't see a difference? How about this photo...next to a caked skein of "regular" yarn (that's SweetGeorgia Yarns again...TLS in Slate):

Yes...that's a big boy right there. It took me an hour and a half to wind that bad boy up too. I was originally going to wait to wind this up for when I could meet up with my friend Michelle, who has both a large swift and a jumbo ball winder, but I got impatient and needed to cast on for a project...NOW. I was going to wind that lace all by hand, the old school way. Yes, a moment of weakness. Then I thought about turning a discarded paper towel cardboard roll into a makeshift nostepinne. I tried that idea for about 4 meters before taking another look at that massive skein and ditched the idea.

That's when I decided to try to turn my regular ball winder into a jumbo one. And guess what? It worked! No, I couldn't use my swift to hold my skein. Not only would the swift not be able to handle the weight of the yarn, but it wasn't large enough to hold it anyways. And I'm not that crazy enough to re-skein the yarn to make it fit. Instead, I placed the open skein on my lap as I cranked the ball winder. But wait, you say, how did I turn my ball winder into a jumbo one? I took that paper towel roll and cut it in half, then snipped a slit at the top, placed the roll (with the slit at top) over the existing tube of the winder and kept it snug by shoving the leftover cardboard tube inside the edges of the makeshift tube. Then I went to town. Every once in a while I had to move the metal arm that holds the yarn just a smidge so that the yarn could wind upwards, rather than off the winder.

Why am I showing you and talking about winding yarn? Aside from the lovely yarn p0rn, I'm just extremely excited about the whole idea of now being able to wind larger skeins and hanks of yarn without having to cut them at the halfway mark (I'm a nerd, I know). Which is a good thing, cause I can't imagine winding Wollmeise lace by hand. I shudder at that thought. That's just taking up valuable knitting time! Knitting time that I don't seem to have much of lately.

So what am I going to do with this big boy of a cake? Well, you're just going to have to wait and see... heh heh...

Happy knitting Friends!