Yay, Christmas!

Firstly, all the knitted gifts were well received (and fit!) which was a HUGE relief. After reading some horror stories on Ravelry, I was preparing for the worst. But everyone seemed pretty happy! Yay!

And I gots me some goodies! From my loving husband: a ball winder and swift!

And tried them out right away with some Noro. The ball on the left is the one I wound with my nostepinne, and the one on the right was done on the ball winder.

There isn't a huge difference in size, but the time it took was drastically different: the ball winder took just a few minutes, while the nostepinne took two hours. That's a lot of knitting time that will be saved!

My in-laws were kind enough to send a monetary gift, which was split evenly between the hubby and I. Scott got a helmet camera and some gloves. Boring! I got a swanky Golding spindle (the Kingwood) and some really awesome roving from Loop on Etsy. I got the Earth Mother colorway, but Chocolate Liqueur was a close second (someday...). I spun up a little bit as soon as I had the chance. Please refrain from making fun of my inability to spin, I know I still suck.

My pictures really don't do the roving justice-it is beyond beautiful. As for the spindle, I'm not good enough at spinning to really know how great it is. But I can say it is better than the old one- there is a marked difference in the way it feels as it spins. Hopefully one day I'll know more about spinning to tell you more.

I also bought two pounds of alpaca from Spunky Eclectic, but it won't ship until Monday. :( More updates then!