My Christmas present from MOH was a wooden wool winder and swift which took longer than predicted to arrive, which stressed him out more than it should have, and more than I wanted it to too. We knew it was hit and miss as to whether it would arrive in time for Christmas (it didn’t - but it was on its way), but MOH was keen for me to have a present to open, and his backup present cut it fine too.

When it arrived it was beautiful, and needed assembling. With no instructions to follow I got most of the way there, and between us we got there. The wool winder is the darker wood and the swift - for holding skeins - is in the lighter wood.

Spoiler: I haven’t masted the swift just yet.

The pieces of my wooden wool winder, before assembly

a wooden yarn swift photographed on the floor, part on a rug

Once again this year I’d bought the Yarn Advent calendar by Vicki Brown Designs, and I was hanging on to this for it to be my first ‘wound’ wool. And here’s day 1 wound.

my first skein of 'wound' wool - with the wooden winder in the background

With life getting in the way until this weekend, the yarn and the winder had been left to one side. But after a slower weekend and with MOH out on a long cycle, I picked it up again - and cracked winding the skeins. The tension on this wound peach wool is much more tightly wound than I’d previously managed. This was achieved simply by increasing the tension (or holding!) the wool as it went through the guide.

A close up of some peach wool on the wool winder, blurred background

holding a newly wound ball of multicoloured wool, blurred table in the background

And then there was no stopping me - sort of. The swift is going to take a little bit more time and as you know I’m inpatient. But I’m making progress with over half of the Yarn Advent wound - I’ve even rewound some of them so they’re more tightly tensioned. Once they’re wound I know I’ll be keen to get started on my next project - I should finish my last project first though, but the new project call is strong - and making up projects is not my favourite task.

Overhead of my yarn advent box, with over half of the skeins wound into balls

Each skein is tied in three places with a small length of the same yarn, and I can’t quite bring myself to throw this away. I’ve been knotting these together and winding these onto a wooden cotton reel along with smallish remnants from other projects. I’ve no real plan for how I’ll use these but at some point - and I think that won’t be far off - I think I’ll be adding these to my hook.

scraps of wool (used to tie skeins) wrapped around a wooden sylko cotton reel

I’m pretty sure I know how I want to use the Yarn Advent skeins, and before I share more on that I’ll show you the outcome of the previous years’ project.

Last December, for the first time in a long while, both MOH treated ourselves to an advent calendar. His was coffee, though I think he’d much have preferred whisky, or as he later discovered a port advent calendar, and mine was wool. I was more than happy.

Each morning, opening our advent calendar, became part of our new ritual. He even feigned interest in the wool, me likewise for the coffee! My original plan had been to try and use each skein close to the day I opened it, but that was way too optimistic. And so they were carefully admired and put aside for when I knew I could enjoy them properly.

And here they are. The nerd in me couldn’t resit photographing them in order, starting with day 1 in the top left corner. The nerd in me is still sticking to using them in order too, as you’ll discover later on in this post.

Clearly I had no idea what colours would be included, but I’d given some thought in advance on how I would use them, but before we get onto that I needed to wind them to use. No fancy winding tools here, so I spent an enjoyable afternoon creating these balls of wool ready for use, and thankfully not too many of them misbehaved and ended up in a muddle of knots. Though a couple did, and my patience to untangle them astounded me.

Having already given how I would use them some thought and deciding to try something slightly different for me - though still crocheted squares - I knew I would need some neutrals to make my half and half squared blanket, well, less garish.

I’ve started with day 1, and so far I’m really pleased with how they’re turning out. I chose two neutral colours, one a pinky-grey and the other (not shown) a blue-green, both of which are colours that fit our decor and I like.

So now, it like one or two other projects on the go is calling my name each evening when we sit and relax. And I’m keen to see how this one works out.