I can’t stand it when my yarn looks like this:

Normally I push through minor inconveniences. I pride myself on being the kind of crafter, the kind of person in general, who can “make it work”. I can knit with pencils when I have to. I’m happy to use paperclips when I’ve lost all my stitch markers. I once did a week of blogging on a old computer while sitting on the floor. Push on through! That’s me.

Except when the yarn is messy. Then I don’t push on through. Then I go get my ball winder.

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So I’ve been doing a little here and a little there on my Hue Shift Afghan. No really. I have. I’ve added a few squares since you last saw it. Its been traveling with me and becasue of that some of the yarn balls have fallen apart. Actually, nearly all of them have fallen apart.

How sad. Who can knit with yarn in that state? Not me. Fortunately I have a ball winder!

There. All better.

Now, don’t be fussing at me for wasting precious knitting time on making pretty little cakes of yarn. Firstly, I really have made some progress on that Hue Shift Afghan.

Secondly, making pretty little cakes of yarn is fun. I like to do that. I offer to wind up other people’s yarn. They think I’m doing them a favor but for me its fun. Winding up cakes is the epitome of playing with yarn.

I’m working on the knit version of the Hue Shift Afghan. Knit Picks, who sells the pattern and the kits to make the blanket, recently published a version of the pattern in crochet. The crochet pattern is free, at least for now, and you should go grab a copy of it.

But getting back to the point….

Once I had the ball winder out, I hunted around for some more winding to do. Oh look, I’m almost done with my ball on the Pie Are Square Shawl. Better get another skein out and wind it up. Actually, I think I’ll make that two skeins.

I know it looks pretty much the same as the last time I showed it off here but I’ve put in a whole skein of yarn since then. Still, the shawl is no where near done. I’ll need both those cakes (maybe more). So that winding wasn’t a waste of my time either.

You would think all that would have satisfied my need to wind some yarn. You’d be wrong. I got two balls of Chroma in last week. I may not be ready to work them into something but I can turn those balls into cakes can’t I?

Yes, yes I can. And that was not a waste of my time becasue… I’ll get back to you on that.

You don’t need a ball winder to make a cake. You can make them by hand and sometimes I do that too. In fact I have a whole video tutorial on how to wind yarn into a cake by hand.

I really do like making yarn cakes.