Notes from ball winder central

So: I'm still winding yarn into cakes.

I did get all the skeins undone, so that was a bonus!  The only place I had to set up the swift and winder was near the TV though, which led to some problems.  For a start, I am pretty unpopular if somebody is absorbed in a movie or really good show, because the ball winder is not silent.  If it's just me - well, if you look away from a table swift for too long, the yarn ends up popping off without your noticing, and then you have a tangled mess to deal with.  That happened a few times during the skein stage, and yet I kept on turning my head to the TV like a maroon.

(home renovation shows.  it's sick, all things considered, but I can't stop watching them.)

Eventually I got everything to the cake stage, but some of the cakes are a real mess from me not watching  them carefully, so the split cakes aren't going very fast either.

I think I may have mentioned before how I do this to ensure both socks start off on the same colour and I waste the least amount of yarn possible.  In case I didn't though, there are several steps.

First, I weigh the cake.  Technically these are 100g skeins, but they weigh in at anything from 104g to 106g.  I aim to wind two small cakes of equal weight.

Then I check to see what colour stripe falls at the very end of the cake, from the inside.  I will want to cut the yarn just after that colour, when each wound cake is exactly half of the whole.

Then I set the cake into a tall pitcher - that way it doesn't fly off under the couch or something, even if I am winding fast - and hook it up to the ball winder.  And start winding!

Periodically, when I hit the end of my target colour, I take the cake from the pitcher and set it onto my kitchen scale to see if it's at the halfway mark yet.  And if it is: snip.

Then I recake the second half, so I knit the stripes in the same order for both socks.

WHEW.

I have to be sure I never to let so much sock yarn back up ever again.  Because man,

this is taking a long time.

Worth it though!  Wait till you see the socks I started knitting as a reward for getting through the skeins, heh.