I was just looking through the latest issue of Knitty and saw a review of a yarn winder that I then scrolled right past. I'm not interested in winders because I love winding by hand. For me it doesn't matter whether the fibre passing through my fingers is en route to becoming a sweater or a sock or a nice squishy centre pull ball ready for knitting. The feel of the fibre is a huge pleasure.
I'm very old school about some things and winding balls by hand from skeins is pretty old school for sure. Its no accident that when I was choosing a photo for the title of this blog I chose one that captured one instance of ball winding in progress.I was particularly thrilled to also learn the correct way to do it - with a centre pull option no less!
I read about it in Simply Fabulous Knitting based on the work of Montse Stanley - a terrific resource book that I would very highly recommend. I borrowed it twice from the Library before I found it for sale in an LYS. Its magazine-like size, isn't too heavy to throw in the knitting bag when I'm heading out the door - there aren't many reference books that I've found with which I can do that!
Anyway back to the hand wound balls - I love them! Making them is very pleasant, looking at them, even more so. I'm amazed at how easily they release yarn from the inside out. No knots, no big lumps of half wound yarn, just a smooth feeding source of yarn right down to the bitter end of the ball.