Drowned in wool

Prepare for a long post!
There are so many nice things about swapping yarn, because you
a) get post
b) can lay hands on wool you don't see in you LYS
c) are - at least by definition - not enlarging your stash!

The swap yarn from Dorothee arrived and it is great! She called it 'Kiwi' and that's truly the most accurate description. Very juicy colour, I really like it. For no particular reason my crappy camera is not able to produce a close up of the yarn. Therefore I'll give you a group picture with it's sippling and Alison's wonderful socks. I am wearing them all the time!

When I 'contested' for the yarn I announced, I could imagine myself knitting gloves. Yeah, sure I can.. But now I am thinking about the beautiful pattern I found over at this higly recommendable blog: Elfine's socks. [The second link directs you to the relevant post. There's also a PDF pattern available.]
But then again.. socks!? Tread yarn like this with my feet? Am I out of my mind?
So anybody out there with ideas? I will definitely turn one of the skeins into something glove-like, but probably not both.

Onto something different. It's almost middle of October and Lolly had the brilliant idea to turn this month into a festive one. Guess, what this sums up to? Right, Socktoberfest! Another reason to cherish and show off the current sock project (but recent sock achievements are allowed to enter the virtual pampering session as well) So go over there and join the fun!

After finishing my Opal Fish socks [gasp - I didn't take a picture of them yet!], the needles were free to pick up a new sock project. And so I did - before tons of Ewa's Sockenwolle arrived here.
I recently got some Opal handpainted and even though I only finished a few centimetres along the leg, I feel like I've really spend time with this sock. See the neat center-pull ball?
Are there still people out there without a ball winder? Doesn't look like that to me ;-) I'm all into gadget, but a ball winder didn't cross my mind so far. Maybe because I didn't even know until recently that such a thing exists. And then, it would take lot more skeins to be in the black, with the (modest) hourly wage I grant myself for ball winding work.

Want to see some pictures of the magical transformation of a hank into a skein? Here you go.
I found out soon enough that sitting this way wouldn't work for too long and and moreover was too unflexible to unravel problem areas. Talking about problem areas, maybe some gymnastic exercises would be helpful here... Finally, I switched to the more active mode of running around the kitchen, threading the freshly wound ball through portions of the hank. (This time I am grateful that there's no one bothering to take pictures of my 'stupid knitting stuff' round here!)
I ended up with this lovely ball that, carefully modelled into form, looks very neat and - best of all - works perfectly. Hurray!

In case you are wondering.. yes, the thing in the middle is the core of a toilet paper roll. It holds the inner end savely in a slit and can be squeezed out once the skein is done. Ingenious. Not my idea, though.

The pattern of the Socktoberfest sock is Jaywalker btw. It was designed by Grumperina for her Sockapal2za pal and can be found now on Magknits. (Be sure to check out the post in her blog about the whole designing process, like here and here.) She used Opal handpainted as well and the short colour repeats seem to be just perfect for this type of zigzag. Fun. The knitting is simple but also a tiny bit annoying because I alsways have to count or look closely for the increases and decreases. I don't really feel them yet.