yarn winder? why?

[FrLopLady]

Ok I see them, hear of some using them...but what is the main reasons you use a yarn winder? A store here has a Boye winder for $60...

[mclendon1]

I've been wondering the same thing....

[FrLopLady]

I've been wondering the same thing....

 

lol glad I'm not alone in this! I did have a friend recently with a skein of yarn that she couldn't find the middle pull so had to hand wind it. It was a large skein and the ball was much bigger than a softball when she got done..took her almost 2 hours! I guess it doesn't take that very often to make a winder handy.

[mama24boyz]

When you buy your yarn in hanks,like this http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40842075&ref=cat2_gallery_1 for example, theres no centre pull and you HAVE TO wind it before using it. THats where a ball winder is great. When the yarn is in a centre pull skein then you don't need it. The ball winder also winds your pulls to centre pull balls.

[Sockmad]

Even when my yarn does have center pull I will often rewind it on my ball winder. The cakes don't roll as the skeins of yarn often do. If you want to buy a yarn winder that won't break the bank,I suggest the one by KnitPicks. Theirs is only $19.99 and you can attach it to something OR hold it in your hand. Wish I could hold mine sometimes. I bought mine three years ago at Maryland Sheep and Wool for $35,it is the one made by Royal. Seems to be a popular model. Royal now makes one in a larger size and somebody has come out with an electric one as well. I like winding,most of the time it is relaxing. Sometimes I don't wind quite right and a cake will go flying but most of the time it is just fine. One of the other advantages of winding is you can find out if your yarn has any of those wonderful little surprises known as knots! Just my opinion of course.

[RecycleCindy]

I bought a Royal yarn winder for $32 shipped off Amazon. I wanted it to wind my t-shirt and plarn into balls. It works okay but haven't tried it on yarn yet as all my yarn is already in skeins. I understand it works a lot better on regular yarn such as when you get those big bags of loose yarn. It would be helpful for sure then.

[Aggie May]

:cheerBack in my early days of knitting and crocheting, wool mostly came in little balls but occasionally in skeins which needed to be rolled into balls before you worked with them.

A Ball Winder was no use then because it is not so easy winding a ball directly from a skein because you often ended up in a big tangle.

I got my first ball winder when I started spinning but I got a Niddy Noddy and a Skein holder too.

The Niddy Noddy was what you made the yarn into a skein on, after spinning and plying, the Skein Holder, a rotating thing which had extendable arms, held the yarn while you wound it into balls with the Ball Winder.

Now, in the 21st century, these things are still available but all of the yarn I buy is in balls which I can usually pull from the centre.

My Ball Winder only gets used when I have a large ball of yarn I want to tidy into usable balls.

I know there is a lot of yarn available which is still in skeins but a ball winder is not really the most useful thing to wind a skein into a ball because you still need something or someone to hold it while you wind.

Back in the 50s, my Aunty Lil was the first person I knew who had a Home Knitting machine and she did not have a ball winder so learned a way of winding by hand, a ball of yarn which you could pull from the centre.

It needed to be easy to pull because the knitting machine used the yarn much faster than handknitting did so the flow was important.

Even though I do have a Ball Winder, I still, very often, use Aunty Lil's method of to make a tidy ball of yarn or just to straighten out yarn which has been used and unravelled.

My latest Ball Winder was purchaed at a Charity Shop for $4.00nz so maybe, if you really must have one, go looking at your local Charity Shop because that way you will satisfy your need for a gadget and help a charity at the same time.

:lolSo ends my long-winded lecture for the day.

Have fun.

Colleen:hug

[mclendon1]

:cheerBack in my early days of knitting and crocheting, wool mostly came in little balls but occasionally in skeins which needed to be rolled into balls before you worked with them.

A Ball Winder was no use then because it is not so easy winding a ball directly from a skein because you often ended up in a big tangle.

I got my first ball winder when I started spinning but I got a Niddy Noddy and a Skein holder too.

The Niddy Noddy was what you made the yarn into a skein on, after spinning and plying, the Skein Holder, a rotating thing which had extendable arms, held the yarn while you wound it into balls with the Ball Winder.

Now, in the 21st century, these things are still available but all of the yarn I buy is in balls which I can usually pull from the centre.

My Ball Winder only gets used when I have a large ball of yarn I want to tidy into usable balls.

I know there is a lot of yarn available which is still in skeins but a ball winder is not really the most useful thing to wind a skein into a ball because you still need something or someone to hold it while you wind.

Back in the 50s, my Aunty Lil was the first person I knew who had a Home Knitting machine and she did not have a ball winder so learned a way of winding by hand, a ball of yarn which you could pull from the centre.

It needed to be easy to pull because the knitting machine used the yarn much faster than handknitting did so the flow was important.

Even though I do have a Ball Winder, I still, very often, use Aunty Lil's method of to make a tidy ball of yarn or just to straighten out yarn which has been used and unravelled.

My latest Ball Winder was purchaed at a Charity Shop for $4.00nz so maybe, if you really must have one, go looking at your local Charity Shop because that way you will satisfy your need for a gadget and help a charity at the same time.

:lolSo ends my long-winded lecture for the day.

Have fun.

Colleen:hug

 

You are such a hoot Colleen!

[RoseRed]

I LOVE mine! It lives on the corner of my coffee table. I'm surrounded by yarn anyway. lol I'll work directly from a 7 oz center pull skein most of the time. If there's half a skein or less I'll wind it. It's so much neater to put away a cake than a mess of yarn barf waiting to happen.

 

I also LOVE joanns Sensations Boucle and I won't work with that without winding it first. Not into fighting with the football. I also use a lot of pounders and it's so much easier to wind it first instead of fighting with it in the beginning to get the yarn out and then at the end when it collapses in on itself.

 

I use it from the outside of the cake. I just think it flows better for me and I don't have to rewind it when I get to the end and there's only a little bit left.

[magiccrochetfan]

When you buy your yarn in hanks,like this http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40842075&ref=cat2_gallery_1 for example, theres no centre pull and you HAVE TO wind it before using it. THats where a ball winder is great. When the yarn is in a centre pull skein then you don't need it. The ball winder also winds your pulls to centre pull balls.

 

It's all a matter of personal preference, but I like to work from the hank without winding it. if the yarn is smooth (does not stick to itself) you can hang it over a chair or some such and lift the strand off the hank as you go. I like to do this because the yarn is so pretty in the hank. When I stop i just twist the hank back up and put it away. (This would not work well with little kids or playful pets, but for some reason my cats almost never try to get at my yarn.) if it starts to tangle i get my husband to hold the hank taut and I roll it into a ball by hand.

[grandmalolly]

I got my winder from Knitpicks, too, and my swift. I love them. After I started buying yarn in hanks, it became a necessity rather than a luxury, as I couldn't stand up long enough to drape it over the back of a straight-back chair, and wind from there. It's easy to use, even with arthritis in my hands, and just makes things easier!

[RoseRed]

I have the white one on the left

http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/category.jsp?_DARGS=/joann/catalog/supercatleftnav.jsp.7_A&_DAV=catName&_dynSessConf=-6881137791159431927&narrowSelection=true&categoryExpand=true&categoryfullPath=All+Products////product+home////knit+%26+crochet////yarn+ball+winders&CATID=cat2074&supercatId=cat1780&lftsuperCatName=yarn+ball+winders&subCatName=yarn+ball+winders

It's clamped onto my coffee table. They show the electric one too. I have no idea what the big spinny things are for tho.

[magiccrochetfan]

I have the white one on the left

http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/category.jsp?_DARGS=/joann/catalog/supercatleftnav.jsp.7_A&_DAV=catName&_dynSessConf=-6881137791159431927&narrowSelection=true&categoryExpand=true&categoryfullPath=All+Products////product+home////knit+%26+crochet////yarn+ball+winders&CATID=cat2074&supercatId=cat1780&lftsuperCatName=yarn+ball+winders&subCatName=yarn+ball+winders

It's clamped onto my coffee table. They show the electric one too. I have no idea what the big spinny things are for tho.

 

the swift is to put the hank on, it holds it taut and does spin around as you pull the yarn off it. takes the place of our yarn assistants' hands

[Pyroteca]

I have both a wool winder and a swift because a lot of the yarn I use in in hanks. But, even when I have a center pull skein, 1) I usually can't find the center pull and 2) once that skein is about half-used, you get a yarn barf (or at least I always do). So, winding for me is a must. I used to do it by hand using the chair to hold the hank (or sometimes my DH) and winding it in a ball, but it just took forever. So, my very lovely MIL bought me my swift and wool winder when I went off to law school so I could spend less time sorting my yarn and more time using it to make things. Like someone else pointed out, too, you find those pesky knots in the middle of the skein, which is always nice. I honestly couldn't live without my wool winder and swift.

[tracyleigh]

I have a yarn winder and just love it. I use it all the time.

[pat54]

Well have 2 ball winders, one is my mom and the other is my DBF:lol. Personally I hate winding the yarn into balls but also get frustrated when you can't find the center pull and have to take it all apart and then you just have this mess. Both my mom and DBF love to wind the yarn and find it very relaxing so I just give it to them and it comes back to me in nice neat yarn balls.

[Flia]

I have the white one on the left

http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/category.jsp?_DARGS=/joann/catalog/supercatleftnav.jsp.7_A&_DAV=catName&_dynSessConf=-6881137791159431927&narrowSelection=true&categoryExpand=true&categoryfullPath=All+Products////product+home////knit+%26+crochet////yarn+ball+winders&CATID=cat2074&supercatId=cat1780&lftsuperCatName=yarn+ball+winders&subCatName=yarn+ball+winders

 

I have the red/white one on the right.

I wonder if I could ever function without it

[RoseRed]

the swift is to put the hank on, it holds it taut and does spin around as you pull the yarn off it. takes the place of our yarn assistants' hands

 

Cool. Thanx for the explanation.

[Ms.Oz]

I use a lot of one pound skeins also, so it's nice to wind it into several balls a.) to prevent from having to cart around a big ostrich egg of a skein, and b.) each time I don't wind it I end up with a massive knot once the skein collapses on itself and I waste all the time I was trying to save by not winding it when I have to undo the knot. I bought mine from knitpicks also. Love it :-)

[tnkycrochetnut]

I just got a yarn winder a few weeks ago. So far I just love it. It makes the best balls of yarn. Its easy to do. I just clamp mine to a magazine. Either the large print Guidepost or large print Readers Digest works perfect. Mine came from Knitworks and I got it on sale. Just don't remember the exact sale price but it was under $30.