Thursday, May 26, 2005

"Balls!" Said the Queen, If I Had Them I'd Be King

I used a thing called a "yarn winder" at my LYS and thought it was such a cool gadget. And since knitting is not exactly a gadget-rich hobby...I was quite interested. Which then lead to my desire to own one.

I found a new one on ebay and promptly bought it with "buy it now" -- the instant gratification option on ebay for those who have no patience for the auction to officially end.

Within two days the box was waiting at my front door when I got home from work.


The new winder


Quite the odd-looking gadget, no?

So I started winding. I bought beautiful Cascade 220 yarn that comes in the long skeins that needed to be made into balls of yarn. Little did I realize that knot factor was an issue while turning the long skein into balls. My patience wore a little thin -- and I wound up with a big wad of knots!


Look at that mess.

"That mess" took me about an hour to unknot before I could wind it on the yarn winder properly. So frustrating. My husband walked in during this process and said, "that yarn winder thing is stupid."

Me: "It's not THAT yarn winder that's stupid," pointing to the gadget, "It's THIS yarn winder that's stupid," pointing to me.

After recruiting him to hold the next two skeins of yarn while I wound them up, it occurred to me that this was a two person job. You need two hands to hold the long skein, and one hand to wind on the machine. Then and only then do the balls wind up perfectly.

My husband doesn't know this, but from now on he's my full time ball winding assistant.


Look how purty my newly wound up balls came out.



2 comments:

kristy said...

i think your husband's new nickname should be "swift." bwahahahaha!

Chela Jane said...

Ah yes, as Darra points out, a swift is the next gadget you should purchase. I bought mine through Webs (I think their website is www.yarn.com). Makes the winding so much easier, and is less taxing on husbands.