I get questions all the time about swifts. If you start off buying your yarn at JoAnn or Michaels like I did you aren’t even familiar with yarn hanks as opposed to skeins of yarn that are ready to knit with. Hanks need to be balled before they are used, and a swift makes that process easier.
One of the first times I ordered yarn from Knit Picks I got 4 hanks for their fingering weight gloss. I had no idea what I was doing so I just started knitting from the first hank. Tangles and crying ensued. I balled the second skein before I started knitting with it and there were more tangles and crying. Hours and hours of my life were put into just balling the stupid yarn and I swore that I would never hand ball yarn ever again.
Enter my at home yarn swift! If anything, now you know what it is! And, while I’m convinced that only boys can see HD, this video is in HD so HD it and be amazed!
There is also a very cute cameo by a Miss Pudge Rodriguez!
And there you have it! Investing in an at home swift isn’t for everyone, but if you are an online yarn shopper and hate untangling and balling your yarn by hand, it may be something you want to add to your craft room.
So I started knitting a sweater. You knew I couldn’t hold off until January. I knew I couldn’t hold off until January. It was bound to happen.
King of Confidence
I started this sweater from the new winter 2009 knitty. The idea behind the sweater was to use yarn you spun yourself in a sweater without having to spin yarn for an entire sweater. I’ve never spun before, but it did make me think of that Kitchen Sink Dyeworks yarn I won a few months ago that I haven’t used yet.
Kitchen Sink, Patons
I bought a bunch of Paton’s Merino when it was on sale around Thanksgiving that I’ve got on my mind grapes for a sweater, so I thought if I knit the sweater in the red and used the yellow around the yoke it would be a great way to use that fancy yarn on something I would wear all the time, having only one skeins worth.
About 7 Inches
But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t get McDonald’s out of my head. Yellow and red? I would kill someone if I knit a sweater and got a McDonald’s comment. And I was bored. The sweater felt bulky, I pictured it looking bulky on me, and it had no wow factor.
So I ripped it out.
Ball Winder+Swift=Happiness
To make myself feel better I opened my new swift, attached it, along with my ball winder, to my work table, and balled all the yarn I had laying around. It was kind of awesome. Look how cool my table looks with a freaking swift attached to it! And it took about 30 minutes to ball that Knit Picks Gloss, where before I wanted to kill something even thinking about balling them by hand.
… yeah. I said Knit Picks Gloss. I might have something in mind. I might be a big fat cheater who can’t wait until January to start the Sweater a Month 2010 Challenge.
