Wednesday was my Birthday and this year Hubby got me the coolest gift! The best part was that this gift was a total surprise... and I love surprises! Wednesday morning at 6am I was given two boxes, when I opened these two boxes I found to my delight and surprise a yarn swift and a ball winder. Okay, so lets look at pictures and I'll explain for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.
Above you'll see the whole process, from hank to winding to finished ball. Not only can I take hanks of yarn like the one above and wind it into this nice flat ball, that I might add is a center pull ball, but I can also rewind my old round balls. Why would I do that? Do you see how great that ball is? It would make all my yarn storage uniform and stackable. Is my OCD showing? But I'm getting ahead of myself here.
This shows you what a swift and ball winder look like. Please ignore the background mess. Both pieces are hand operated, no batteries necessary. For those of you questioning storage, the swift condenses down much like an umbrella. Little to no storage space needed when this guy isn't in use. Both the ball winder and yarn swift clamp on to the edge of most any counter or table for ease of use.
Once the hank of yarn is placed around the swift and the ball winder is threaded it's simply a matter of turning the hand-crank handle. Slow and steady wins the race here. Depending on the fibers in the yarn you are winding, you might hit a snag now and then. By going slow and easy, you be able to fix things along the way. I'm not talking about the pace of a turtle, but definitely don't want to crank like a crazy person and create a big mess at the first sing of a snag.
Now the piece de resistance - the finished flat ball with a center pull. This is what I'm talking about when I say easy storage. No more rolly, polly balls escaping captivity at a moments notice. This nice flat ball will stack well with others, and stay where it's put.
If you're wondering how one goes about winding a round ball into a flat ball this should help. Quite a while back I saw something on pinterest about using a bowl and a binder clip to create an inexpensive version of a yarn bowl. I simply put this little handy trick to work for me. I put the ball in the bowl, slipped the binder clip on to the edge of the bowl, then threaded the yarn through the top of the clip, then on to my ball winder and in no time at all I wound my round ball in to a flat one.
Yes. I am officially a Yarn Geek. I couldn't be more tickled to have this as a gift for my birthday and I will get many hours of use and enjoyment from using it. This girl's gotta have yarn to knit, and now I won't shy away from yarns I like that are in hard to manage hanks. Yarn swift and ball winder take just a few minutes to create a ball of yarn, something that used to take tow people at least a half hour to do.
©SLMPetersen 2007-2013
Pretty cool! And happy birthday again!
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