@kelbournewoolens It’s time for another how-to video with Courtney! 📝 While you don’t need this equipment to wind a hank into a ball, (see our last video about hand winding) you may see a swift and ball winder at your LYS. They’re wonderful tools that take a twisted hank into a beautiful ball (sometimes called a cake) that’s ready to work with. PS Courtney is winding some Mojave for me so I can start my Avenue Tank by @toriknitsnyc 😍 Questions? Let us know! 👇 #kelbournewoolens #yarnwinding #crochet #knittingtutorial #knitting ♬ original sound - Kelbourne Woolens
Hello! This is a hank of Mojave, and we are going to use a swift and a ball winder to wind this into a ball, because you can't knit from it like this.
If you ever buy something from the yarn store and it looks like this, or like this, any of these things, you have to wind it into a ball. This is a ball. You don't have to wind it.
What you want to do is carefully unfurl it like this. Now, the important thing to note, this one is only tied in one place, and you can see it here. Some yarns are tied in multiple places, and sometimes they're tied with the beginning and end, and sometimes they're tied with a contrasting yarn.
This one, you can see, is tied here, and here, and here. I like to put it between my hands, like this, and give it a little shake. That way, you can see if any of the strands in the twisting.
In the twisting process, sometimes one of the strands, or more, gets going in the opposite direction, and then when you shake it out it looks a little funny. You need to check that your strands are all going in the right direction, and that your loops don't have yarn going in the wrong direction, like this.
See how that looks all messy? Find the knot, and just check and make sure all the strands are going the right way, and that none of them are crossing over. It just takes a moment.
Once you are confident that your skein is not disorganized, you're going to put it on your swift.
Lift this up, and tighten it. Now, you're not ready. Here's the thing. If it goes on your swift, and it's wrapped around like this, a bunch of times, it's not going to pull nicely.
I like to make sure that it's nice and organized. Keeping your threads organized is deeply important to your emotional well-being while you're knitting. As a weaver, I find thread organization to be very important. It's important here, too.Now, I have the beginning of the hank and the end of the hank in my hands. One of them is going to pull from the inside, right? See how it's coming from back here? I don't want that one, because it's going to put too much tension on it as it tries to pull out. See how this one is coming off of the front of the hank? This is the one I want.
I don't want to fight with this. I just want it to be nice. Come over here, lift up and up again. So it's going through there and here.
Now, this is the part where I'm so sorry. The cobbler's children have no shoes, because our swift and our ball winder squeak. It's not squeaking. Usually it does. , I just set this up really, really well. I think sometimes if this is too tight, there it goes. Oh, that sounds awful.
I'll loosen this up. And if you put a lot of tension, if there's too much tension on this, that's too much. Don't do that.
You want this to pull nice and loose. Okay. What a good example. It was all tight. And it got all messed up. Okay. Here we go. Look at that. Just give it a little. It wants to be free.
Don't wind your yarn too tight. Don't knit too tight. Don't wrap things too tight. Just relax. Breathe. Take your time. Just don't rush.
There it is. I'm going too fast. We need a new ball winder. It is true. But I'm cheap. This one still works fine. There we go! I grab this guy. And then you can pull from the center if you want. Or you can pull from the outside.
Now you know how to wind a ball using a ball winder and swift.
