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Selecting Your Perfect Yarn Ball Winder

If you're a serious knitter who buys hand-spun yarn or other artisan yarn in hanks or skeins, you'll surely need to invest in some type of ball winder, with or without a swift. The ball winder has a shaft or shaft around that the yarn is wrapped, while the swift supports the yarn in such a way that it can simply be fed on to the winder. Winders can be manual or electrical, made from plastic or wood.

A popular , cheap model is the Lacis Yarn Ball Winder, a hand operated yarn winder which makes perfect pull thread balls up to 4 ounces without requiring tubes or cones. Its yarn feeder provides an even flow and prevents tangling. Positive reviews point out it's cheap (under $30), portable and handles all weights of yarn with equal ease. Less positive reviews whinge that it is a little capacity winder, only up to 4oz per ball, the clamp is too small for some tables, and you need to maintain an even strain of the yarn feed in order to get a firm ball.

Very like the Lacis, is the Royal Wool Ball Winder. It is a little more expensive, but seems to be correspondingly more robust. The Royal is designed in such a manner the yarn fundamentally cannot get caught in the mechanism. It also clamps to a table and works best with a swift.

Nancy's Knit Knacks makes a slightly costly industrial quality wooden Ball Winder, mainly designed for the yarn industry, but great at home, too. It is very sturdy with a large (high torque) wooden handle. The handle is cushty to use and very powerful, allowing it to wind fast, while making no noise. It can wind balls up to 1 Lb. Or even more.

If your arm tires easily employing a hand winder, the Boye Electric Yarn Ball Winder may be the answer. It quickly and easily winds hanks of yarn into centre-pull skeins. It can wind thin yarns together to make different colors and thicknesses. Some users complain that the yarn is wound to tightly, while others say the opposite, that the ball is too loosely wound. Potentially the answer to the problem lies in fixing the turn-rate. Other users have moaned the smoothness of the plastic causes the yarn to slip off the end of the tube but the majority of users find the speed and straightforwardness of an electric winder outweigh other concerns.

There's not a massive assortment of Ball Winders to make a choice from. Factors that influence which one is good for you include price, volume of wool you need to wind, and space you have available. The important choice is whether to desert Granny's back-of-the-chair technique and invest in some technology to keep your knitting projects spinning along.

Have a look at our fun site about winders for yarn balls here. And look at this post about Laciswhile you're at it.