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Yarn Love. Elizabeth Bennet. Nirvana. Not so much. |
I make the ugliest yarn cakes. They fall apart. They sometimes come flying OFF the winder as I'm making it. And I buy good yarn. Beautiful yarn. I'm so sad to see it go from the lovely hanks all twisted in their beautiful figure eights into my loose, sloppy, cakes.
The first time I saw the umbrella/winder in action was when I was in my early twenties. I was a high school English teacher then and single. I was lucky enough to spend the entire month of July at my parents cabin in northeastern VT. The woman who runs the store up the road (where I spent my childhood getting fireballs and Cokes) took up spinning at some point. So I bought some of her lovely hanks of handspun yarn to make a baby sweater. She showed me the beauty of the umbrella and ball winder. She made me gorgeous yarn cakes.
This past year, I purchased my own umbrella and winder from knitpicks.com. They have these handy tutorials on how to use both the umbrella and the winder. I appear to be doing everything right. Here are some examples of my ugly specimens:
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Blue Sky Worsted Dyed Cotton-Pumpkin. See how I had to hand roll that last bit? I think this was one that went flying off the winder.. |
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Blue Sky Trio of ugly cakes. Pumpkin. Honeydew. Lemonade. |
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Quince Yarn. Gorgeous. Until I get it. |
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Actually, this one doesn't look so bad to me anymore...Madeline Tosh DK, Mare. |
And, did I mention that I try to pull from the inside of the yarn cake (although recently I read an article about perhaps that's NOT the best way to do it). Often this means big chunks of tangled yarn come along. My cakes are bad inside and out.
At least this appears to have no reflection, I don't think, on my projects. I'm particularly proud of this little guy:
A headless Mama Duck using the Blue Sky Worsted Dyed Cotton. I'm making a series of ducks for a baby present from Susan B. Anderson's Itty Bitty Toys It is knitted all in one piece and this back was kitchener stitched together. So cool. On Susan's blog she has a great great kitchener stitch video. Using that and the directions in the book I feel like a fabulous kitchener...can't wait to make socks!
