Core lumme

India quite rightly asks me what I mean by putting a core in to a centre pull ball. Makes it sound oh so technical and complicated, doesn't it? It isn't - quite simple, really.

Most frequently, what I do is this:


It is relatively easy to slide the wound ball off the centre spindle of the ball winder directly on to a nostepinne, and then just keep it there for the duration. An advantage of using a noste is that it is easy to slide the ball to the end for ease of plying, something less manageable if you go the other route of using a toilet roll inner or any other roll of stiff paper or thin card. If you only have a small amount of yarn to ply and you are absolutely certain that you will finish the job in one session, then and only then you can just use a thumb or finger, but don't say I didn't warn you....

Why do it at all? Because if you have a very fine, relatively highly twisted single and you make a centre pull ball to ply it, then if left unsupported the centre of the ball WILL COLLAPSE in on itself. Then the fine strands will tangle together and before you are aware of what is happening, WILL pull out in a nasty tangled mess that will prove impossible to sort out. Yes, this will happen. How do I know? Silly question.

If I am wanting to ply a fairly small amount of silk or other fine yarn that is particularly precious, I will go as far as splitting it in two and using two bobbins. But there is usually a little bit left anyway. And I do realise that this seems such a very elementary point, but it will save an awful lot of high anxiety and bad language. If you remember to do it........

A few days ago, I toddled off in search of tea and socks. One I made and enjoyed, the other sort of sidetracked itself into this



I have mentioned this before. Still isn't finished. I am really not sure about it, so putting it on one side so I can mull it over does make sense, and is not just avoiding the problem. One thing is certain, I am not going to pull it out, so I guess I might as well soldier on and get it finished.

But I did eventually start the Regia socks.



These are the knitting equivalent of eating too much chocolate. Lovely and comforting at the time, but just the tiniest bit icky. Still, I am going to press on and attempt to beat my own (unquantified) sock knitting record, because the Online Guild has a toe-up sock class starting next week that I want to participate in. And before anyone asks, no, I haven't finished the green socks, and I have absolutely no idea why. Weird how that happens.

Which reminds me. Of course I am not doing the ruddy Knitting Olympics. Silly! But I hear that there is a Team Cambridge, so might just have to wave a pom pom or two. (Looks furtively over shoulder to see who just said that. Me? No, surely not....)