Yesterday I managed to finish and block my father’s christmas gift. Today I managed to finish and block my mother’s christmas gift. They are both fantastic, and quite frankly my dad’s gift may get a part two. They are actually going to be quite difficult to give away I love them so much. But, I can’t show you until after christmas.

Instead, I figured I’d ball up some yarn for a project of my own. I got a new winter coat this year, and I realized that I have yet to knit any accompanying accessories for it. I also realized I have yet to knit anything from loop bumps I’ve spun. So, I looked in my stash, found a lovely two ply, and wound it into cakes.

Let’s talk about winding yarn for a second here. Recently most of my winding is done by hand, with a nostepinne I picked up at the Taos Wool Festival. It is from KCL Woods. But even before the nostepinne purchase, I’d been winding by hand for quite some time. I think this has something to do with working predominately in handspun, and loving the handspun so much that even winding it is a pleasure.

However, I have close to 900 yards of this loop handspun. So, I figured it would be a little overwhelming to wind it by hand when I was eager to start immediately. I wound the first smaller ball with a regular royal ball winder, but for the second skein, which was HUGE, I pulled out my strauch ball winder. This one comes in handy when I need something for a particularly large skein. I can winder faster with the cheap royal, but it was worth it to pull out the Strauch. So I figured I’d grab a photograph to show the difference. Added bonus, I grabbed the nostepinne and threw that in the shot as well.