All wound up

Perhaps the best thing about knitting for others is that I get to buy yarn without feeling the least bit guilty. I get to come home every other day with yet another yarn package and Zeb can't "tsk-tsk" me for spending more money because it's for a gift. In fact, I think the only reason I decided to give knitted items as Christmas gifts this year is so I would have the perfect excuse to selfishly indulge in two of my favorite pastimes: knitting and buying yarn. Anyway, here are my latest purchases:




The blue yarn is Blue Sky Alpaca Silk that I bought from Fabulous Yarns. Besides being a very pretty shade of blue, this yarn is wonderfully soft, possibly the softest yarn I've ever felt. A lot of knitters rave about Blue Sky yarns and I must say the praise is well deserved, although I might be a tad premature in my assessment considering I've yet to start knitting with the stuff. But judging by looks and feel alone, I'd say it's a winner. The red balls are Blackberry Ridge Silk Blend Lace weight yarn which is a blend of 25% Silk and 75% wool. It's a very rich and dark shade of red, a lot darker than it looks in the picture. Both yarns arrived in hanks which I then had the pleasure of winding into centre pull balls, a task which took me 3 hours but only because one hank of yarn got so badly tangled. Still, winding yarn into balls is such a tedious process that I may have to invest in a ball winder. Anyway, the projects for which these yarns are intended will be kept under wraps until after the recipients get them at Christmas. But don't worry, I'll have plenty more projects to share with you in the coming weeks including my very first Fair Isle project which will be this.