Saturday, August 14, 2010

A swift?

One of the nice things about hand-dyed yarn is that it comes in skeins that allow you to see the colour variation along the strands. An unfortunate side of this though, is that you need to wind it into balls before you knit or crochet with it. To avoid making knots, you need to somehow stretch the big loop of yarn so that it's tight while you wind it. If you're someone who knits fairly fast and often finishes things (neither of which are true about me), you can probably justify owning a special contraption called a swift, specifically designed to do this.

In our house, my husband is the poor sucker who usually gets the job of holding his arms out for ages while I try to negotiate the ball winding business. But I think he's out of a job. (I'm sure he's very disappointed. Not.) Enter two child-sized Ikea chairs, the perfect size for stretching out the big loop of yarn, and small enough that I can wind from above which seems to help it unravel easily. I'm feeling rather clever!
So now I have two more balls of lovely hand-dyed yarn ready to be made into shoes for peanut (who is expected to arrive in less than 8 weeks...I need to get making! Fast!). And I've started.
Which is rather exciting, because due to a self-imposed rule requiring one thing to be completed before the next one is started, it means that the knitty bit of the Ishbel hat that I've been knitting forever is FINISHED!! It's currently blocking, but once that's done I'll show you some proper pictures.

6 comments:

Kate said...

Wow, look at you, all inventing winding contraptions and finishing and blocking and starting and all that while growing a baby. I am impressed.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Leonie said...

Necessity truly is the mother of invention. Or maybe it's just mothers who are the mothers of invention *giggle* Hoping that the next 8 weeks pass quickly and not too uncomfortably.

Sue said...

Oh I wish I had thought to use my daughter's little red Ikea chairs for that instead of my partner's arms, he would have been so happy if I had! I now own a swift which makes me so happy and I use it from time to time, otherwise it has a nice rest gazing at all the yarn I have wound up, lol! You Ishbel hat looks absolutely beautiful so far and I hope the baby shoes are finished before your baby arrives!

Unknown said...

Clever!!! And beautiful can't wait for the proper pics :)

Jodie said...

What a great contraption!!! I totally need to create one of those for all of the skeins I've been winding of late... Looking forward to seeing the finished baby shoes..

Hugs - Jodie :)

Sally said...

Great idea! You clever thing!