Neighborknitter

We're not here for a long time; we're here for a good time.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Do Not Try This at Home

It's here! It arrived Tuesday and it is far more beautiful than I ever expected. My ball winder (and my nickel-plated size 0 DPNs, but, as I've already said, I only ordered those for the free shipping- really).



The only item I don't have? The swift. This fact did not concern me at all. I know many people who've used a ball winder without one and I saw no reason I couldn't do the same. These people told me the only crucial element to this non-swift mix was another human to help. Miz Knotty, especially, emphasized the need for a second pair of hands to hold the yarn while the first pair wound the yarn. She never said it in these exact words, but her message came across clearly: easy non-Swift yarn-winding is definitely a team sport.

I warned The Hubba. He was ready to go. The winder came Monday and as we had a big Colts game that night (Colts win! Colts win!), I'd set Tuesday night as the night (cue Rod Stewart) and had already picked out the yarn to wind.

Except. Tuesday afternoon some surprising and scary news reached us. The Hubba's dad (The Father-in-Law or The FIL for short) had been checked into the hospital that afternoon. After much calling around and waiting and intervention on the Knitter family side by actually going to the hospital (thanks Mum Knitter!) to sort it out, we heard his condition was treatable, he was doing much better and, really, the entire situation was a freak ailment and should not be expected to reoccur. All good news except for The FIL who still had to stay at the hospital for a few days and be poked and prodded and woken up every half hour through the night in an effort to "help him get some rest."

I blame the news about The FIL. In my excitement he was OK and my need to do something with my hands, I thought "Hey, why trust the opinions of so many others? I can wind this yarn on my own."

So I unrolled some of Brooke's beautiful yarn



and got to it.

I hooked up the ball winder on the edge of our desk.

I looped the yarn around my arm (note the UT blanket in the back- sewn for The Hubba by Knitty Yoda! Thank you Knitty Yoda!).



I unraveled several yards of yarn at a time.



I used my free left hand (on my yarn-holding arm) to hold the strand for tension and my right hand to turn the handle to wind the yarn into a nice little ball.

This plan was much neater in my head than in actual practice.

I did the first two steps easily: yarn on the arm, yarn pulled off to wind.

Except.



This kept happening to the yarn coming off the floor. No matter how lightly I held the yarn, it insisted on tangling.

And when it didn't tangle



it would wrap itself around the whole winder and not the part of the winder appointed specifically for winding.

So at the end of an hour (how I wish I was kidding) I had this:



The Saddest Ball of Yarn in the History of Yarn.

Now. I realize it's not what it looks like, but how it knits that matters. Hence the cold feeling in my belly on observing The Saddest Ball of Yarn in the History of Yarn. Any knitter who's ever knit from a poorly wound ball of yarn knows it sucks. It tangles and the working yarn doesn't pull nicely from the middle and, more often than not, you end up cutting the yarn and untangling by hand before you can knit the yarn back in.

Have you ever had a project that you should not have undertaken in the attitude or at the time or in the manner in which you undertook it? Even, as you start, the smart, non-emotionally foggy part of your brain is saying "DO NOT DO THIS. WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE CALM." It's a lot like starting a project after a few glasses of wine except, at least then, you're feeling mellow.

I looked at The Saddest Ball of Yarn in the History of Yarn and I looked at the clock that said 5 when I started and now read 6:15 and noticed it was raining outside and remembered I still needed to run to the store for dog food (because, while The Hubba and I could manage with whatever scraps we had in the fridge the dogs could not have less than they're full cup of kibble a piece for dinner) and I felt the knots in my shoulders from holding my arms in basically the same position for over an hour and I I looked back at T.S.B.O.Y.I.T.H.O.Y and a new idea came to me.

I would re-wind from the currect "ball" into a newer, neater, easy-to-use ball. Ha.

HAHAHA.

(It probably would have been good to have a glass or bottle of wine. Oh well.)

Thinking ahead I realized the current "ball" of yarn needed something to hold it, to keep it from jumping all over the room as I wound it (see? SEE? I really did have a good plan).



This worked for a while, except, the awful, tangled middle of the "ball" of yarn meant lots of stopping, untangling and starting over.

Yet. Only thirty minutes later (really) I had this:



A Fairly Respectable Ball of Yarn that Looked Good Enough Not to Put Ball in Quotation Marks.

And that yarn is now knitting nicely into a pair of Jaywalkers that aren't nearly as blurry as they appear here:



Also, for the record, I PROMISE I will never, ever do this again. Unless I forget what a pain in the arse it was, trick myself into thinking it will be much easier this time around, and figure I've worked out the kinks of the plan well enough for it to go smoothly. Maybe I will also have a glass or bottle of wine in me at the time.

And, most importantly, The FIL should be getting out of the hospital today or tomorrow.

3 Comments:

Blogger Anna said...

Hehe...the joys of a ballwinder. Don't worry I often rewind balls too.

6:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That looks a lot like some my "balls" of yarn. The swift helped, until it lost a screw mid-way through the last ball I tried winding and fell apart. I still haven't finished untangling that ball...

7:06 PM  
Blogger TURBOchic said...

me too! me too! So many parts of this post I can relate too!

I am missing the same crucial swift as well. At first the price of a (wooden) swift puts you off, but after one experience with tangles that make you cry. $70.00 isn't looking so bad any more. I found the best way to get the hubby to help is to let him crank the yarn and you control the unwinding. not nearly as fun, but after a while the Hubby will get the hang of it and switch hit with you.

Also, Whitewillow=YUM! I personally believe that Brooke may be stalking me so she can make skeins I can not resist buying. Also, she may be the reason I am giving up sweaters.

9:11 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home