Almost done with the first sock. I could have finished the last inch of the foot and toe last night, but I’m afraid my eyes were drooping just a tad bit too much from the long week! I really do love this yarn, and the colorway is fabulous. The browns are just so deep and rich. Love!

I’ve been eyeing some gadgets and equipment online, and frankly I’m a bit floored by how much money I can spend on tools for blocking garments and measuring my yarn. I’m not made of money, and I figure that the less of my ‘fun’ budget I spend on other things, the more I can spend on yarn! So I did a little Googling and found some great deals and ideas from other knitters.

First off, I’m already looking towards blocking the lace that’s on my needles. I’m not anywhere close to finishing this piece, but I wanted to have a peek at how much a wire blocking set would cost me. I found a nice set for $50, which was a bit steep for me. I kept looking and found the same exact set on Knitting Warehouse for nearly half the price.

Next was a blocking board, which retails for $80+. Um, no! Going through some forums on Ravelry, I found a blog post from a knitter who made her own blocking board. Brilliant! I found some red-and-white checkered fabric (the blocks are exactly 1 inch x 1 inch) for about $6 for two yards. I still need to track down the foam core boards, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I already have a ton of T-pins from previous blocking and the pins that came with my lace blocking kit. So I’m pretty sure I can construct a similar blocking board for well under $20.

Finally, I’ve been thinking about how I can figure out how much yardage I have of yarn leftover from projects. I’m looking into getting a small scale; I don’t want to get the cheapest thing on the market, because I would like it to be pretty accurate, but I don’t want to spend too much on it either. Then while I was poking around on Knitting Warehouse, I saw a yarn counter. Brilliant. This one is $30, and I think I found one somewhere else for $50. Again, a little pricey for me. And again, I poked around Ravelry and found someone who uses a fishing line counter for the same purpose. I found one at Joe’s for $20.

Hey, ten bucks can buy me a good chunk of roving! I think the guys in the fishing section were kind of amazed that I even knew what a line counter was. 😛 This morning I gave it a test run:

All I have to do is convert feet to yards, and voila! I wound up my Kauni into cakes so that I could see all of the layers of color:

(Yes, that’s three balls of Kauni; I got another one yesterday.) Look at those colors! I am SO excited to work with this stuff, I just have to practice some self-control and finish a couple other projects first. 😉