Winding up for the holiday
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the USA. (Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving a month and a half ago--a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you!) For many Americans, this means spending time with family and eating so much food that you feel uncomfortable. (This is the time of year when one of my personal mottos--"There's always room for dessert!"--is severely tested.)
I'll be heading out of town myself for a bit. My trip preparations include packing clothes, toiletries, and--of course--yarn. It's a tricky thing, deciding on which knitting project to take on a trip. On the one hand, you don't want to take so much that you're lugging around far too much fiber. On the other hand, you don't want to take so little that you actually (gasp!) finish your project and have nothing to do. (On the other hand, though, this might actually lead to an exciting opportunity for on-the-road stash enhancement...)
So I'm mulling over which of a couple of projects I want to start on this trip. All of the yarn I'm considering using (and already have) is in skein form, which means I'll have to wind it in balls. I don't own a swift or winder, so I wind my yarn by hand, using the technique Debbie Stoller presents in Stitch 'N Bitch (i.e., put your fingers in a "pretend gun" pose and wrap the yarn around your thumb and forefinger while holding the tail against your palm with the other three fingers). For the most part, it's worked pretty well for me, though it never achieves the uniform shape and tightness I'd like. I invariably have to rewind the ball a few times as I work my way through it because if I don't it loses its structural integrity, collapses, and turns into a very annoying tangle.
I just came across this Flickr page that describes--both with photos and text--how to use the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper to wind a center-pull ball of yarn. The part about rotating the tube to get a nice criss-cross pattern (thus avoiding lopsided balls of yarn) is particularly helpful. I think I'll be giving this technique a try this weekend!
(So how do all you ball-and-swift-less knitters out there wind your skeins into center-pull balls?)
I'll be heading out of town myself for a bit. My trip preparations include packing clothes, toiletries, and--of course--yarn. It's a tricky thing, deciding on which knitting project to take on a trip. On the one hand, you don't want to take so much that you're lugging around far too much fiber. On the other hand, you don't want to take so little that you actually (gasp!) finish your project and have nothing to do. (On the other hand, though, this might actually lead to an exciting opportunity for on-the-road stash enhancement...)
So I'm mulling over which of a couple of projects I want to start on this trip. All of the yarn I'm considering using (and already have) is in skein form, which means I'll have to wind it in balls. I don't own a swift or winder, so I wind my yarn by hand, using the technique Debbie Stoller presents in Stitch 'N Bitch (i.e., put your fingers in a "pretend gun" pose and wrap the yarn around your thumb and forefinger while holding the tail against your palm with the other three fingers). For the most part, it's worked pretty well for me, though it never achieves the uniform shape and tightness I'd like. I invariably have to rewind the ball a few times as I work my way through it because if I don't it loses its structural integrity, collapses, and turns into a very annoying tangle.
I just came across this Flickr page that describes--both with photos and text--how to use the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper to wind a center-pull ball of yarn. The part about rotating the tube to get a nice criss-cross pattern (thus avoiding lopsided balls of yarn) is particularly helpful. I think I'll be giving this technique a try this weekend!
(So how do all you ball-and-swift-less knitters out there wind your skeins into center-pull balls?)
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