A good gadget should make your life easier.  Over the years I’ve had plenty of gadgets that I’ve used once or twice and then set them aside because they didn”t make things easier.

When I first got back into knitting I fell for those beautiful dyed colours that tended to come in skeins rather than balls.  At first the job of holding the skein fell to my husband who tried his best but in all honesty it is really boring holding your arms just so while I slowly turned the skein into a ball.  As my yarn stash grew so did my need for gadgets.  I picked up a fairly standard cheap yarn swift and an unbranded plastic ball winder.  It didn’t make my life easier, in fact the winder liked to chew my yarn and could only just handle a 100g skein.  I dislike unnecessary cutting and making a skein into two balls because I only have to rejoin things during the course of my knitting.

When I started my Ringwraith stole I had to make two balls because I had to wind a 200g skein, I was almost at the point of having to wind the second  200g skein and not looking forward to it at all.  I did a bit of research and set my heart on the Heavy Duty Ball Winder from Nancy’s Knit Knacks, being in the UK it was much easier  to do a special order from Loop Knitting Shop (I try to visit the shop whenever I have to go to London because I don’t have such yarnie gorgeousness near me).  I was expecting to wait 2 weeks for my special order but eight days later and it arrives just in time for me not to need to take a break from my stole.

Set up was really quick, the instructions had some really useful ideas for setting up your swift in relation to the position of the winder.  Winding the ball was so simple and so smooth, no more fighting with the handle, no more slipping of gears and having to quickly save the yarn from being eaten.  The handle only needs the lightest of touches to get it turning, the ball wound beautifully first time.  I’m all set to carry on with my stole now and I’m looking forward to winding the yarn for my next project.