Gloves, Scarf and Wool Winding

This week I received my much anticipated Wool Winder from Texere Yarns. I have been postponing the purchase of this item for ages. I have always had something else to spend money on, usually yarn. I decided that I needed to get the huge cones of yarn, I purchased over the summer, wound so I could actually start knitting with it.



These are the two cones I bought, AFTER winding 7 balls worth of yarn. Each cone is made from a single ply of wool, so I have wound a strand from each cone into each ball to make them 2-ply. I also wound my Louisa Harding Grace Silk and Wool, from the skeins into balls. I really want to knit with this yarn and I knew I wouldn't be able to use it, until it was wound into balls. I did a couple of other balls as well. Here is a a picture of all I wound. As you can see I really got into the groove!



I hope to get much use out of my lovely little winder, now I have invested in it.



Yesterday was at my weekly visit to Mary Clare, for the knitting group. As predicted, my friend encouraged me to purchase the Kidsilk Haze, in order to knit the scarf for college. She is SUCH a bad influence. I have been able to justify my purchase to myself by mentally labelling this scarf as Christmas 2009 knitting. This way I kill three birds with one stone.

1. I get to knit with very pretty yarn.
2. I knit a college project
3. I get a really really big head start on my Christmas knitting.

This scarf has been much fun to knit so far. I have been gazing longingly at this particular colour since I started going into Mary Clare. I'm sure someone in my huge list of present recipients will like this.



The stitch pattern is really simple;

Row 1: K
Row 2: P
Row 3: K1, (Sl 1, K3, PSSO) repeat until one stitch left, K1
Row 4: P1, (P3, YO) repeat until one stitch left, P1



After a few rows I didn't have to think very much, and the scarf grew very quickly. We are meant to be putting a frill round the outside next week in the class. Part of me wishes we could leave it simple, like this, but the finished item we were shown looked nice as well.

After getting up to the length of scarf required for my homework, I thought I'd have another crack at my angora gloves. I have been knitting odd digits in between other projects and have now finished them all. I have even joined up all the fingers of one hand and knitted down to the start of the thumb gusset. Its very exciting to be able to put the fingers on my hand and see how snuggly and warm these gloves are going to be, when they are finished.



Hopefully I will be able to post more updated pictures after the weekend, when more progress has been made. Phew, another very full day of yarn related activities.