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One day it will all be easy

December 14, 2008 in yarn by Sarah

I am still not good at winding yarn onto my ball winder:

I must say that there is something special about a skein of yarn that a ball of yarn doesn’t capture. They have that wonderful slightly floppy heaviness that speaks “yarn” to me, and makes me so tempted to acquire them, but winding them on the ball winder is tedious.

I was trying to wind a 1600m skein of 90% alpaca, 10% silk a few days ago and the knot above is what happened. It was so frustrating, as the ball on the winder got bigger it would suddenly fly off across the room and I had several small balls in sequence:

In the end I got it wound, but I had to break the yarn in several places, so I have two good sized balls and two little ones and one clump of forever knotted mess that I have thrown into the pillow case of fibre I am putting aside for future art yarn spinning projects.

I suppose that result is acceptable, but I can’t bring myself to believe it is optimal.

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December 17, 2008 at 5:05 pm

Chris(Luna)

Are the ball winders really hard to use? I just asked my dad for one as a gift for Christmas. I’m really looking forward to getting started on my knitting.

December 17, 2008 at 7:42 pm

Sarah

They aren’t difficult to use, but it is finicky to wind lace weight yarn on one for a knitting machine.

I was just having a bad day. I wouldn’t worry about it.