Ball Winder and Swift

So, I am in the market for a winder and swift. I am curious as to where you have purchased yours and what the brands are? How is the quality and ease of use? What are the prices that I should expect to pay?

Thanks for your help!

Time to whine.

I think it is great that the online knitting world seems to be blog-centered. I love to read blogs. I feel a connection to those who expose their lives on their blogs. Seeing pictures is great. Being exposed to others creative output is inspiring.
However, it can be frustrating. My previous interests were always forum-centered. Being a member of an active forum is another great way to get to know people. And further more, it is a very easy way to ask questions and quickly get answers. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but I have yet to find a truly active forum for knitting. I am a member of get stitchy! forum and Knitting Forum. Whenever I ask questions or look for advice, at most I get one or two responses and they never tend to be what I am looking for.
And this is why I have decided to blog. So that I can have a place to ask questions and seek advice and hopefully get answers, ideas, and inspiration from a myriad of people with different points of view. I realize that it takes a long time to get viewers to come to your blog, never mind an actual following. But I have been trying to post comments on other people's blogs more often and such to try to get people to come out and read what I have to say.
Well, I will leave you with a picture of a bunch of baby socks and hats that I have made recently. My cousin is expecting triplets in December! Baby socks and hats are a great way to use up left over sock yarn!

Joining the Bandwagon for...

Koolhaas Hat! As you probably know, it is from IK Holiday 2007 issue. It reminds me a lot of Shedir, in certain ways. So I decided to make it out of Rowan Calmer. I am doing a light blue that I got on sale from my LYS - only $7 woohoo! I was originally going to make Shedir for my mom for Xmas, but when I saw this pattern, I thought it would be fun to give it a go. I cast on the same number of stitches as for Shedir - 128. Still divisible by 8, which is how many stitches that are in the pattern. Hopefully it works out! I am excited by it! I am doing it on Clover US 2 dpns. I have 1.5 repeats done out of 4, so not too bad. Here it is:



I am sure you admire my amazing photography skillz...just kidding. I can actually take nicer photos, but my camera isn't so great. It does better outside, but I took these pics at night. Oh well! I can't wait for it to be done!