Another Thing NOT To Do!

Early in August I went to the Blue Moon Fiber Arts barn sale.  A drunkard should not stop in at a bar just to see what is available.  A yarnaholic should probably not go to a barn sale where there will certainly be fabulous yarns.  Well, I did do it. It was a lovely drive in the country.  WAY OUT into the country!  On a very beautiful summer's day.  Parking was in a field by the barn.  Yes, this barn sale was in a barn...the barn where they do their yarn dyeing.  In fact that day there were multiple times when people could dye yarns and...  But I digress.

As it happens, I only bought one skein of Socks That Rock yarn.  Being a skein, it needed attention before I could knit up some socks.  As it happens I did not bring a yarn swift nor a yarn winder with me to Oregon.  They are safely ensconced in our attic at home.  As it happens a couple of months ago I broke down and purchased a Stanwood Yarn Winder to re-wind yarn into cakes from balls that I had for knitting the afghan. The Stanwood works great.  So great, actually!  Except in this case!

If you don't know yarn, you might not know that there are multiple ways to buy yarn.  Sometimes the yarn comes in a "ball" with a center-pull end.  This is very nice.  The only thing about it is that the yarn ball often rolls all over the sapworks when you are knitting.  Because of this penchant for the ball to roll, many knitters like to use a yarn winder to make a "cake" of yarn which is flat on two sides, like a layer cake.  The yarn does not roll around.  This is wonderful.   I frequently make yarn cakes as a matter of course.

Another form of yarn put up is in a skein or hank.  This is when the yarn has not been balled up.  To wind this yarn, you need a yarn winder and a swift.  OR you need some sort of  apparatus or person to hold the yarn while winding it into a cake.  In this case, not having a yarn swift, I decided not to enlist Dear One's help, which turns out to have been a mistake.  I used a chair to drape the skein around.

This is what happened:

I thought by putting the yarn around a chair it would work great.  It worked great for about two turns of the yarn winder!  After that it just made a mess, whatever way I tried to make it work.  After a bit I thought it just needed to be more tightly held by the chair so I brought in a second chair.  This was even worse!

  So...don't do what I did!

This is the yarn cake on the Stanwood Yarn Winder.  At this point it is about half finished.  The picture of the mess is when it is not really much of a mess any more...I just stood between the chair and the Stanwood and lifted every strand over BOTH sides of the chair and very very slowly turned the crank on the Stanwood.  It did work.  Just slowly.  (The first time I ever saw a yarn winder and swift in use I was in awe!  The old lady using it -at the Hanover Knitter's Retreat one February probably a dozen years ago--just cranked away and the swift FLEW around and around.  Within two minutes a whole skein of yarn was is a wonderful smooth cake. So impressive. It was shortly after that when I purchased my own swift and yarn winder.)

So, a word to the wise...get a helper to hold the skein around two hands or use a swift. Next time I will do that,  if there is a next time...!