Yay I finally bought a yarn ball winder :happydance: It’s so great and fun…look… :yay:
Yippie for Yarn Winders!
OOOOO AHHHHHH!!! :cheering: :cheering: :cheering: How lovely!!! One of these days I’ll have one of those.
Nadja xxx
Isn’t it fun! I love mine too. Just have to make the dh sit long enough to hold the yarn though! :roflhard:
NICE!!
DH and I are on a limited budget, and I convinced him that I also needed a ball winder after I made him help me wind a ball of lace-weight yarn by hand (and found one 50% off). It is a dream!!
Trying to talk hubby into one now. So jealous of the pretty wound yarn!
Misty
DH gave me a ball winder and swift for Christmas and I was so excited the first time I set it up and used it. :happydance: My younger DD just shook her head and laughed! (The non-knitters just don’t get it!)
The night I got mine, I sat down and wound all the yarn I have. 
It fits in bins so much better now!
Wow!!! 
That’s great!!! I’m always nervous working from a skein, and I don’t like hand-winding my skeins/hanks.
Can I ask what may be a simple question (but I don’t know the answer)? Can you use a ball winder on skeins of yarn? If so, how do you do it? Do you have somebody hold the skein while you crank the handle on the winder until the yarn is gone? :shrug:
I have used it for skeins when i have had yarn vomit that was more than i want to deal with. i have some bowls and a measuring cup that sit next to my winder and swift that i have used for blocking hats. Whenever i have wound a skein i have just dropped it into the two cup measuring cup and started winding. i usually hold my hand over the top of the cup to avoid it coming flying out. I do find they tend to wind a little looser but they still work well for skeins.
But now for hanks, you’d need to get a swift too (or at least make one yourself), right? Unless you can find a patient friend/relative to hold the yarn while you wind, right? :teehee: This doesn’t exist at my house (the patient part!) 
Sorry if these are really elementary questions…I’m still learning some of the knitting tools and I don’t always know what they’re for or how to use them. :oops:
:cheering: I want one!!!
Are all ball winders hand crank? Anyone know? I guess I could look it up… :teehee:
I got one for Christmas too and I love it!
Of course, the first skein I wanted to wind ended up being a ginormous disaster and was such a tangly mess, I ended up tossing the yarn wad into my suitcase and letting my mom untangle it when I got there. I really thought I had the outside strand when I started winding!
candice
My mom got me a winder and swift for Christmas. Actually, we ended up waiting for New Year’s so we could use a 40% off coupon. We ended up getting both for the price of one. Nice! I still haven’t used them, and now I feel like a real dope. Last night I needed to wind some yarn, but I was intimidated by the winder, and this wasn’t even a job that would involve the swift (which is the more daunting apparatus, right?)
I ended up winding the yarn by hand center-pull style the way I learned a a while ago from SNB. Now that I see your pretty work, I feel like a complete dope. I should have just used the winder and gotten a nice tidy little ball out of it. Not that my hand-wound ball isn’t nice, but I am thinking the winder would have gone faster and made a more even ball. Duh. I have more to do tonight. Maybe I’ll take a few shots of liquid courage and finally pull that winder out of the box, lol.
yes they’re a hand crank
SO WORTH IT! Much easier to store yarn properly.
When I was at Stitches East, one of the booths had an electric ballwinder. I’m not sure how much they would cost though. :shrug:
How does it do with “hiding yarn from loved ones and other potentially hostile parties”?
My DH made me a swift right after Christmas, using the website cookworm mentioned. Instead of using velcro strips he attached pegs to the bottoms of the wooden strips to go into holes he drilled in the lazy susan. He also put several holes in the strips, for large and small hanks. it works GREAT with a ball winder made from a cordless drill. I’m thinking of buying the ball winder itself, because I’m too lazy to go to the garage. then again, that $ could buy yarn.
I got kinda desperate at one point and used my sewing machine to wind a ball of yarn :teehee: My hands were paining me and I figured I would try it out and low and behold it worked well :cheering:
What is a swift?