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Make a DIY Ball Winder with a Mixer

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How to wind a ball of yarn with a mixer.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]

Comments

  1. 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 !

Have you read?

Knit a Log Cabin Blanket with All Your Scraps

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn. 

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small. 

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches. 

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come. 

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you. 

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?). 

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry. 

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns. 

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]