I am on a winding binge. I can’t stop. And I’m considering buying or making myself a swift. Yarn winders are a gateway tool.

I couldn’t resist putting my little yarn cakes on a dessert tray. Forgive me.

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Hey guys! Check out this great sale! For a limited time, you can buy the display model yarn winder for $67 at Wool Tyme! Want to avoid a discount because it’s been used? Want to pay approximately twice what you would pay in the US? Then you’re in luck!

In all seriousness, I actually am really happy about my yarn winder. I also don’t have to put it together, which is nice. Still, though, you don’t think they could have shaved off a few bucks just to make up for the possibility that it could be worn or damaged after sitting in a yarn store for a month? I’m a little annoyed, but not enough to really go on about. I am happy! All my yarn will soon be in balls!

I was going to buy a nice wooden winder from BC for about twice as much ($120), but I was worried that I would be banging my knuckles too much because it was a little small. I was also worried that because the winder was on a belt, it would be difficult to maintain. I took it up with The Beau, and he said to go with the plastic. Two votes are enough!

The past few weeks I’ve been asked by a few people what I want for Christmas. I’m quite picky when it comes to Christmas presents because I hate to waste things and if I get something I’m not going to use, I feel bad about giving it away. So this year I’ve asked people to give me knitting things, because I am certain I will use them eventually. This got me thinking about what the best things to buy a knitter are, which eventually developed into this list:

1. Hand creams and balms, handmade by you, or from etsy. If you’re making a little basket of smaller things, the best hand cream I have ever tried is Glysomed, which you can pick up at any drug store. Believe me, I have tried all the fancy things, spending up to $20 on a tube of blah that doesn’t work. Repeat after me: Glysomed! I am Canadian, so I know something about cracked hands

2. Yarn winder and swift. I am desperate for these. If you know a knitter who doesn’t have one, get them one. They will love you forever.

3. Stitch holders, embroidery needles and other notions.

4. Yarn. Fancy yarn they couldn’t justify buying themselves! But make sure you know your stuff. Little Knits is a nice place to find fancy yarn for a good price.

5. If you’re US or Canadian, get a gift certificate from KnitPicks! You can send it by email, and it means you don’t have to learn the difference between Merino and Bluefaced Leicester.

6. Needles (I highly highly highly recommend Options!)

7. (Practical) sheep-related things, like this cute little soap or this tape measure.

8. A sweater stone for removing pills.

9. Actually, I can’t think of anything else.

10. I should have kept it to just eight.

Help me out! Anything you would add to this?

I saw this today and I figured I’d get it on the blog before it explodes all over the blogosphere. This is work by Joana Vasconcelos, and there’s a whole bunch more beneath the jump. Via whip up. You know this shit is going to go crazy.

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Oh man! Threadless is having a Christmas sale and there are shirts for $5! Not even the crappy ones, either! The honest-to-goodness awesome shirts! Par example, some craft-themed shirts for $5:

For $15:

And here are some of my favourites that are still on sale

Awesome!

Ashley from dogged has recently moved up in the polls in the race for President of my RSS Reader, due to the recent announcement that she will be running on a Pro-Mitten, Anti-Sock platform. I have only ever finished one pair of socks (two are hibernating), and the one I’ve finished I’ve only worn once or twice. The yarn is too thick, so the bumps hurt my heel. I am a big fan of wearing socks, just not knitting them. I do, however, love knittin’ mittens. So saying that “mittens are the new sock” makes me extremely happy. There is hope for the future!

Here’s a little Saturday bonus.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://embed.break.com/NTM0Mjc0" height="392" width="464" /]

Via mettetations.

Japanophile post!

Above is a still from Wool 100％, which looks like a great Japanese talkie about knitting and collecting things, which are two things that I do obsessively. I found out about it via Knit Buddies, and then later read a review at needled. Looks pretty snazzy.

And now I know that Wool is ウール in Japanese! It looks like [[Katakana]]. Am I right? I’m looking it up on Wikipedia and it’s saying that ウール is wuru in latin characters. Is that a phonetic transcription of the English? Surely they’d use the Japanese word for wool, wouldn’t they?

I absolutely love these images by Magdalena Bors. I know the Internet is for quick scanning of images and spending about half a second on each page one visits, but take a closer look at these. My Internet habits almost made me miss the last two images. I feel like I discovered a secret.

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This is incredible work. A Sea Turtle from Tula Pink.