I’m fairly proficient at hand-winding center-pull balls of yarn… so I put off getting a ball winder for a long time. However, a few weeks ago, I made the move: I purchased a Yarn Ball Winder
My hesitations
I’ve worked in 2 different yarn stores over the past few years, and both had very high-quality wooden ball winders. And, even those (very expensive) winders had trouble winding certain skeins of yarn. Silk? Way too slippery… often wound up in a lopsided ball.
So, I was nervous about purchasing a ball winder. I wasn’t prepared to buy a pricey one, and I wondered, ‘how good could a cheap plastic one be?’. Turns out, for under $30, you can have a ball winder that (at least for at-home winding) is supurb!
The ball winder
I purchased the Lacis Ball Winder from Amazon. It’s plastic, under $30 and came with mixed reviews. Most of the reviews were great, and (in my opinion) many of the negative reviews seemed to come either from folks who received a defective unit (and that can happen with any product!) or people who weren’t using the ball winder correctly. So, I gave it a try.
The test
I started out winding some balls, and they all came out beautifully. Then, I gave it the real test: a skein of lace-weight 100% silk yarn. And here’s how it did:
Success! No slipping… just one beautifully wound ball!
The cons
I wound a whole lot of yarn! Here are what I think are the negatives of this ball winder:
- The clamp is only 1.25″. So, for me (who lives with a lot of uber-thick Ikea furniture), the only place I could clamp the winder was on the arm of a chair. This may or may not be a problem for you.
- The yarn feeder needs to be pulled firmly to be engaged. If you yank on the skein a lot, the feeder will become loose (this happened to me on about 1 out of 10 balls). Having a swift would minimize this problem.
- It’s a small capacity winder. If you want to wind skeins larger than 4 oz, you’ll need the jumbo size. (4 ounces is the recommended maximum… I squeezed on much more!)
The pros
There’s a lot to love about this winder!
- It’s inexpensive: for under $30 you get a winder that will take care of almost all of your yarn-winding needs!
- The winder handled bulky and lace-weight yarns wonderfully. It also would very slippery yarns with ease.
- It’s lightweight and portable.
Wanna see how much I love it? The winder did a number on my stash:
Hooray!
So, if you’ve been thinking about getting a ball winder, I recommend it!
I have the same winder, and I agree with everything you’ve said about it!
I find even with smaller skeins of yarn, my cake is getting a little too big for it by the end, and the yarn is easily caught up in the mechanism or slips over the base of the cone (if that makes sense!). We really struggled to fit my 150g skein of Wollmeise onto it!
I have the same yarn ball winder and I love mine too! I once bought an inexpensive ball winder for $20 but My Lacis has lasted much longer and I have had no problems with it.
I love my winder and swift. The problem is that my furniture is too thick for either one to clamp on to. I have to use my sewing machine’s table top to anchor them.
I love my winder, too, and as you can already tell, life is much easier with it in your possession!
Already have one and use it regularly. :)
I am very new to knitting and winding my yarn. I bought a winder but was told I needed to buy a swift as well. I was able to coax my hubby into pretending to be a swift and it worked well. I was wondering if it is something I can do on my own? Did you use an extra set of arms? :)
Having a swift certainly makes it easier, but I don’t have one… I wrap the yarn around my knees, and sit on the floor (since my winder is on the arm of a chair, it’s low enough for this to work)!
Great idea. My winder will clamp onto my coffee table so that would work for me too. Thanks :)
I am thinking about getting a different winder. I have a KnitPicks one & either I am doing something wrong, though my yarn store says I am not, or it is messing up somewhere.
@Jan This is my swift {http://someyarn.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/pvc-swiftskeiner-tutorial/} I love it. Can’t afford the pricey ones & anything wooden that comes into the house is chewed on by the dogs, lol. So I needed plastic or metal. The gentlemen at Lowe’s were nice enough to cut the pipes for me & then it was just a snap together.