yum! a little yarn snack

So, I don't actually have anything new on the needles just yet. But I did go to The Celtic Yarn Shop and buy some more yarn I totally didn't need--that counts for something, right? I got 2 skeins of each of these:

The light one is pure alpaca (so soft!), and the other is a wool/mohair/silk blend. Even better, she gave me the red skeins for $5 each because she was planning to put them in the clearance bin. The shop was pretty cute, and even had a little dog named Pearl (or, I guess, Purl) wandering about inspecting the customers. I will definitely be visiting again . . .
But, I have no plans to give up KnitPicks--it's just so much cheaper! Tomorrow is the day CotLin becomes available, so I plan to order the yarn for mom's tank, plus some sock yarn for some birthday socks for dad. Parents with birthdays a week apart are simply unfair.
After I brought my precious yarn treasure home, I took a crack at winding up a center pull ball. It looks, well, sort of like a ball.

But perhaps I should just invest in a ball winder.
I'm planning to use this pretty red stuff for this one-skein shrug. I think this yarn is a bit heavier, though, than the specified Rowan Kid Classic, so I guess I'm going to have to mess around a bit with the needle size, etc. Blech. I'll get started tonight during the All-Star Game. I don't even know why they call it the All-Star game; they should just call it "Watch the Yankees Play Baseball with Some Other Guys."