Lots of yarns come in hanks these days, which shouldn’t be knit from directly. They need to be wound into balls. And some people just like all their yarn in balls instead of skeins.
So what’s a crafter to do who doesn’t want to shell our for a ball winder?
Use an old or inexpensive cake mixer
.
You’ve probably seen this one floating around the Internet (and Try It, Like It recently posted a photo tutorial about it) and wondered if it actually works.
All you do is install a single beater on a hand mixer, put an empty toilet paper roll over the beater, and then either wrap a little yarn on by hand, tape the end of the yarn to the outside of the roll or cut a little notch in the roll as seen in the video below to hold the yarn in place.
Then turn the mixer on and your ball will wind itself.
I’ve always been sceptical of this, which is why I went looking for a video.
Has anyone tried it? I don’t have a mixer like this but I’ll bet you could score one at a thrift shop if you wanted to give it a try. I’d love to hear what happens if you do!
[Photo via Try It, Like It]
you dont need to wind a ball first, you can go with your fingers into the middle and find the loose end, when you start with that end to knit or crochet, it will stay putt untill the end !
I tried this before, and mixer was to fast for me so eventually my yarn was wraped all over the mixer hahahaha