I have been wanting a ball winder for a long time. I finally bit the dust and bought one, as you can see. My somewhat LYS has a card that gets stamped whenever you make a purchase. Once you spend $200 you get a $20 credit towards yarn, or whatever. I chose to use mine for this.
On the knitting front, I am still trudging along on Loll. It takes me a good hour to get the "skin tag" row complete. I am probably slower than most though. I am also struggling on Carla. I did not join the Carla along, but should have. Like many, I am having a problem with the armhole decreases. I have ripped out more times than I can count. I have used different yarn and practiced different ways, still no luck. So, I have asked my Guru to try and figure it out for me. I SO wish that there was a knitting group closer to me so I could interact with knitters. There is a group locally, but most are very old and I think their style of knitting is afghans and such. I think they would be just as puzzled by Rowan designs.