Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Yarn winding . . .

So Chris turns to me one day, very slyly, and says, "Would you use a yarn winder, if you had one?"
"No, not really", I told him.
I felt bad afterwards, when I realized that he was 1) proving his knowledge of the knitting world and had clearly looked at the Webs catalogue that came that week, and 2) trying to lock down a birthday present for me. Bless 'im.

Back-story . . .
Sometimes yarn comes in balls (or "cakes") . . .

sometimes yarn comes in center-pulled skeins . . .

and sometimes it comes in hanks . . .


Personally, I find the hank the most annoying, because you can't just pull the end from it and knit away like a center-pull skein. You have to undo it and ball it.
hank
Really nice yarn often comes in hanks. Sometimes they have a winder in the store, so when you buy it, they will ball it for you.

"Real" knitters will buy their own winders or "swifts" and do it at home.
Plastic and Metal Swift

 . . . I am not that fancy. I end up wrapping the hank around my feet and rolling it myself.
Sometimes I ask Chris to help . . .

This works too:


But I don't buy enough fancy yarn to make a swift a practical purchase.  However . . .

I came across this posting on the Craftzine blog . . .

DIY Yarn Ball Winder


Which led me to . . .

DYI Yarn Swift: desperate measures
DIY swift

But even better . . .

Winding a skein into a centre-pull ball
wind around the thumb

And, Chris, you are not off the hook for my birthday. Sorry.

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