Attack of the yarn eating beasties?

More yarny chatter today, hopefully pictures of actual knitting tomorrow if I can get what seems to be the slowest socks in the world finished tonight.

A bit of a disaster at the weekend, I pulled out a 400g ball of undyed DK to prepare it for dyeing and found a lot more ends than there should have been. I couldn't find any evidence of yarn eating beasties, and it's possible I accidently snipped it myself whilst cutting some trial dyeing lengths (yes, I really can be that dumb). Still, if it was the work of bugs, ugh!

On the upside the damage was only in once place and left a lot of useable lengths of yarn, these have been put through the dyepot so if any nasties were in residence they are now well cooked. Pictures to follow when the yarn is dry.

As a precaution I am also going to have a bit of a stash sort next weekend and freezer bag anything wool.

On happier, non bug related, note, the roving I dyed up ages ago to hand spin has finally been spun and finished. It sat on the spindle for ages until i had built the niddy noddy to skein it up ready for washing.

It's approximately the same weight as commercial 4-ply of sock yarn, which is just as well as I have lined it up for making April's sock of the month. Not yet decided whether to go for plain or try for some sort of cabling.
Finishing the yarn meant I got to put my new toys into action to wind a ball from it.


Swift in action:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! It is SO MUCH FUN! I am just disappointed that I don't have any other skeins to wind at the minute.

The finished ball is also super and can be used as either centre or outside pull.

Knitting toys

This week has mostly been about knitting toys.

I traded a skein of handpainted sock yarn for a ball winder, this is the first time any of my hand painted yarn has had a value of any sort so I am kinda chuffed.

I have been after one of these for a while and they seem tricky to get hold of in the UK, not sure why as it looks like they are standard kit in the US.

I then ran into a bit of a problem, a ball winder doesn't work so well by itself, at least not unless you have a minimum of three hands. Next on the shopping list was a swift. These are also not so easy to get in the UK and are really expensive (like REALLY expensive). With a bit of help from the ravelry DIY tools group I found this website:
www.craftydiversions.com/patterns/homemade_yarn_swift.html

A bit of converting from inches to mm and a trip to B&Q later I had the stuff to make it for less than £10.

I had a bit of help from my lovely OH to make it, and here it is:

We made a couple of adjustments, like adding a pair of nuts below the CD and another above the arms to minimise wobbling.

The final missing piece of kit in my knitters arsenal was a niddy noddy to wind skeins for dyeing and after spinning.

I opted for a very simple one made from PVC waste pipe and a pair of T joints. Instructions were from www.doctordirt.com/blog/niddy.html but it is pretty straight forward.

Fortunately it didn't need glue to hold it together so can be pulled apart for storage or to change the length of the centre bar to make different sized skeins.

Lots of fun ways to get the toys I need, I have my eyes on a homemade ball winder and maybe a drum carder at some point in the future.