New toys!

Usually, I like to wind yarn into a center-pull ball by hand. Besides being relaxing, it gives me a chance to inspect the skein for splices and other flaws. But in the spinning class I took last month, I learned to use a ball winder to ply my handspun yarn. So I broke down and purchased not just a ball winder but a swift as well.



The swift holds a skein of yarn while it is being transformed into a center-pull "cake". My granddaughter helped test this out.



Not sure why she looks so solemn. It used to be the sight of a camera brought enthusiastic smiles. Someone must have told her all that smiling was not cool. When I referred to the result as cake, though, she perked up and pretended to gobbled it.



This yarn, with the addition of some primary colors, is destined to become a blanket for the granddaughter. That also perked her up.