Darn it

No not socks.  I am thinking the bottom of the sock repair bucket just might be a good place to hide for a while, though.

I continued working on my yarn photo project on the weekend, and when I did that, I pulled out the yarn that I wanted to work with next.  Next as in lace next.

 I thought to pull them and wind them later. It was a good thought.  Monday was laundry and laundry means I am in my room for large parts of the day.  (My laundry is in my very, very large master bath). Monday would be the day to wind this batch of yarn, a good day to baptize my new studio for ball winding.

And I did wind one. And then disaster.

I just sat and looked it for a bit.

Had you been here, you would have just sat too. Snapped clean off and not a thing I can do about it.

I am loathe to replace it.  To purchase locally, they cost a fair bit of money.  To purchase online, possible, but really, it ends up costing almost the same as local, unless I spend enough money to reach the free shipping level.  And that defeats the whole purpose of saving funds by ordering online! 

I am seriously thinking of going the nostepinne route, where by you make the balls by hand on the most basic of tools.  In other words, a stick.  Much of the hank style yarn in my stash is already wound.  There is always more to do, but nothing is urgent.  There are at least 50 sweaters worth that are already wound or are in commercial skeins.  I don't really have sock yarn (my kind of sock yarn) that needs winding, and the fancier fingering weight is almost all wound up already.  It makes for tidier storage.  

I do have a lot of lace to wind, but with my new yarn bowl, there is no reason not to simply wind balls.  I have done that before and it was a kind of nice change from the struggle to make a cake with just enough tension so the ball would stand neatly but not be so tightly wound as to stretch the yarn.

To say that I  am not upset about all this would be wrong.  I am in mourning and I am miffed that it happened at all but it is a ball winder.   Generations of women and men used either a ball or a nostepinne and there is just no reason I can't too.  I am made of sterner stuff. Right?