necessity, invention, and all that

First off, here is the latest yarn off of the spinning wheel. It is 50% Rambouillet, 25% merino, and 25% sheltie. Every centimeter of it is long-draw woolen spun. I'm very proud of that. I think I'll make a scarf with it.

I finally finished the Christmas gifts I was working on. I made socks for Dan's mom and step-mom. Neither of them has a computer so I'll post pics when they're dry.

Last night I swatched the Buffalo Gold sock yarn. Then I remembered how much the yarn blooms when washed so I decided to wash it before knitting. The only problem was that I had already wound it into center-pull balls.

So I pulled out the skein winder and tried to figure out how to wind from the balls without having them fly all over the room. Ta da! An empty CD container with the middle spindle removed. I don't think I can take credit for this brainwave - I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere.
Now the problem was to keep it on its side and on the table so that I could skein off the yarn. I knew I needed to weight it down so grabbed a 5 lb. bar bell and laid it on the container.
It worked perfectly!
Buffalo yarn is very linty before it's washed and dried. I always wear a glove on my left hand when I'm skein winding so that I don't get friction burns on my skin. Here's the glove after winding this yarn.
The yarn will be much nicer after it is fulled. Here it is in a nice hot bath. I'll pop it into a lingerie bag and dry it in the dryer.