Knitting toys I covet

There’s talk of rain on the news today – even though the sky is clear-blue and the sun seems bright. The Baron says that it feels like fall, 70 degrees and sunny. We both really love the rain, and of course cooler weather does make the idea of pulling out more serious and substantial knitting a bit more palatable. But with the fall comes a certain special occasion . . . something that happens just once a year and marks the introduction of a certain someone to the world. There are lots of reasons, all of them fairly lame and rooted in my own made-up pop-psychology, for why my birthday makes me feel icky. The past few years, though, I’ve been fighting the negative and trying to keep things fun.  So on that note . . .

Yes, I’ve been thinking about (if not actually) cutting down on the excess and unused junk/clutter in my life. That doesn’t mean I’m not interested in a few particularly cool knitting tools making their way into my world. Here are a few knitting toys I’ve been coveting:

Something I need:

An umbrella swift to help with yarn winding. Now that I’ve figured out how to properly operate my ball winder (frequent readers may remember my unfortunate first attempt at winding) I need a swift so that I don’t have to tear The Baron away from the pinball machine every time I want to wind a skein of yarn. Umbrella swifts are also cool because they are available in all kinds of yummy natural woods, often handmade. KnitPicks sells their wooden swift here, and Clara Parkes of Knitter’s Review does a nice round-up here.

Some things I just really want:

I am head-over-heels in love with my KnitPicks Options needle set – the interchangeable nickel tips and the super-wonderful, flexible cables are now my go-to needles for almost every project. So now KnitPicks is offering a new needle set, a colorful, wooden-tipped set of interchangeable needles called Harmony. I don’t need the set. I have a perfectly good, nearly identical set. But I can’t help myself . . . I just covet the crap out of these needles.

And while you’re visiting KnitPicks, I’ll take just about any color you like of their Swish Superwash line of yarns. I adore the soft, squishy fabric that Swish knits into in garter stitch on size 7 needles – it’s what I’m having all my new knitters work with for our charity blanket squares.

I’m in love (like many others) with the intricate and surprising designs of Norah Gaughan, and I pause over Knitting Nature every time I visit the bookstore.  Four times a year I eagerly await the arrival of Interweave Knits, my most favorite knitting magazine, as well as Vogue Knitting (both surprisingly inexpensive considering that the anticipation, reading and knitting all make me a very happy person). This year Interweave Knits will publish The Best of Interweave Knits, which I hope to add to my knitting library as soon as it’s available.

And finally, a knitter just can’t have too many cute bags and pouches for carrying knitting & tools. Some of my favorites are Jordana Paige’s Knitter’s Satchel, the oh-so-overpriced Betty Needle Case from Lexie Barnes (that green floral is oh-so cute!), and pretty much the whole line of Namaste knitting handbags.

Knitters out there: is there a must-have that I’m missing?