Knitting stuff

I've been busily knitting away this past month - when work and kids allow me the time. I finished the purse for my sister, which I knit on behalf of my mother who is supposed to be taking a break from knitting due to a hurt wrist. This is the purse before I felted it. I KNOW I took an after picture, but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe my sister will take a picture and send it to me. It looked really cool when it was finished, even if the handles didn't quite fuse to the purse correctly.

I finally finished the orange socks, which I've been working on for two months in between other projects. The pattern is bamboo walking socks, which is a lot of fun to work on. It's the perfect combination of a pattern and mindless knitting. I gave the socks to Aunt Alison, who loved them.
I also knit three pairs of baby booties and one baby hat out of this really cool self-striping sock yarn. I meant to take a picture of all the booties lined up, but I forgot.

And now for this. . . . My father-in-law gave me money for Christmas, and I wavered on what to use it for - new running shoes, a pedicure or three, new books. But then inspiration struck as I was wrestling with a skein of yarn, trying to wind it into a ball to begin knitting a hat for B. I bought myself a swift and ball winder off e-Bay. The contraptions arrived tonight, and I immediately pulled them out of the boxes and set them up. I proceeded to wind a skein of gorgeous raspberry wool from Mountain Colors into a ball. It looks neon in the picture, but it's not at all in person. I can't wait to begin knitting socks with it.

B laughed at me about the swift and ball winder, and then he laughed harder when I called my mother about them. He asked, "Calling someone who cares?" He just now walked past and asked if I was posting about the swift and ball winder so that all my "geeky knitting people" could see them. Brave words from a man who keeps asking me to knit things for him.