I purchased a very cool skein winder from eBay. It arrived yesterday. I put it together last night and transferred two skeins to it (I wanted longer skeins for dyeing). I like this thing so much that I'm considering getting rid of my umbrella swift.
This is a piece of simple yet ingenious craftsmanship. It folds up easily (just undo the center screw and pull out the pegs) and it turns like greased lightnin'.
I also purchased a pound of blue-faced Leicester sock yarn. It came on a cone. I'm sorely tempted to knit it into a lovely shawl, then dye it, but I remind myself that I got this to dye and attempt to resell (or knit for myself). We'll see. . .
3 comments:
One day I'll get one of those to go with my indispensible ball winder. Until then, I guess I'll have to carry on using the back of the chair!
don't get rid of your umbrella swift yet. i have the same cross-bar swift you have and it does have some issues... with larger skeins the motion tends to 'unscrew' the connection and the cross bars will rise up off the base just enough to catch the other tail of your yarn and drag it under and around. also even though you can move the pegs there are some issues with long or short skeins. just my $0.02-Jen
Yeah, Jen, so I've discovered. I've found, though, that keeping the motion clockwise helps to keep the nut from coming off of the top. I still have to reposition the "legs" of it from time to time. It makes lovely long skeins for me to dye, though. I'm using both swifts still.
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