If you don’t have a yarn winder, you’re missing out on a great crochet tool. Pull skeins of yarn, like RH and similar brands, don’t absolutely require winding into nice little cakes, but those hanks that are twisted into a sort of figure 8 or something that looks like a braid, like Cascade and most higher end yarns, absolutely must be rewound before being worked with. Well, you can be brave and work directly from the hank, but I guarantee a great deal of frustration and many knots in your future!
Yarn winders come in a variety of styles. This one is entirely new to me:
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http://www.thewoolshack.com/accessories.htm?action=detail&ID=178
The website listing this one is in Australia, but I’m sure the tool will be available soon in the US and elsewhere if it’s not already. It looks a little labor intensive to me – but quite decorative just sitting around like they are.
There are two other more common tools for this purpose – the swift and the crank-style yarn winder. These are widely available and are offered in a variety of prices.
Both of these require a surface to attach them too. There are also free-standing styles of swifts. Swifts are made of wood or plastic – opt for the wood if you have a choice. These are the best for rewinding those hanks that alpaca, silk, and other ‘fancy’ yarns come in. My LYS has a swift and happily rewind any such skein that I purchase from them. That saves me the labor – and the expense of purchasing a swift. You CAN unwind the hanks a couple other ways – using the back of a ladder-back or other rigid wooden chair, or, my personal favorite method – me sitting in a recliner with the hank wound around my two feet and me rewinding carefully so as to avoid getting any tangles. Good for the abs too, I’m told.
The ‘classic’ crank-style yarn winder is an invaluable tool. I actually purchased my first one of these at a thrift store, new in the box, for $5!! Since moving in 2004, I’ve lost that one and had to order a replacement that cost me about $25. Well worth the price. I have a little tray that clamps onto the arm of my favorite chair. I can screw this little winder onto that tray and crank away, creating yarn cake after yarn cake. It’s actually a lot of fun.
Several years ago, I was able to purchase a lot of mill ends. My crank winder made quick work of all those bags of yarn I had purchased very inexpensively – mostly baby weight stuff. The advantage of a yarn cake over a pull skein is that the typical pull skein your purchase in the form of a skein of RH or similar yarn will collapse when you’ve used most of the skein. That collapse may result in tangles and definitely slows my crocheting. The yarn cakes never collapse. They also take up less room for storage. I wind the skein then stuff the yarn label in the middle of the ‘donut’ shaped cake I’ve created. Works great for me.
A very low tech but effective (and even soothing) yarn winding method is with a nostepine. Noreen Crone-Findlay has a video on her blog demonstrating how to use this simple tool.
http://www.blisstree.com/hankeringforyarn/secrets-of-the-nostepinne-wind-your-yarn/
Here’s a sample of what a nostepine (or nostelpine or nostepinde or nostelpinde or maybe some other spellings) look like:
http://www.fiberarts.ca/Fiber%20Arts%20Tools.html
They are available on a lot of websites, are made in a wide variety of woods, and sell for a wide range of prices, with the average being about $30. One advantage of this tool is that there’s virtually no way to break it or wear it out – a potential problem for any mechanical device like the winder or swift, although they’ll last you a good long time if you care for them.
And, depending on your outlook, this is the lowest (or highest) tech ball winder of all – your hand. Check out this site for complete instructions of creating a pull skein with your own two hands, some yarn, and nothing else:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5259016_wind-ball-yarn-hand.html
Whatever method you use, just know that being able to wind a nice cake of yarn can be a time saver in the long run. I get a great deal of satisfaction from seeing that stack of yarn cakes I’ve created.