Stanwood Umbrella Yarn Swift

THE REVIEW

Very few moments in knitting are as exciting for me as breaking open the yarn I’m using for my next project. There is something about the anticipation of the moment, of the project, that just fills me with giddiness. Typically, this giddiness is followed by a moment of letdown: hand-winding that yarn into a ball. I know a lot of yarn stores offer ball winding when you purchase from them, but it can be long enough between some of my projects that winding early could prove to be a mistake, so I traditionally pass on it.

That being said, winding hanks of yarn by hand is a giant pain. There are a lot of tips and tricks out there, including having someone hold the hank for you, placing the hank on the back of a chair, using two chairs to stretch the hank across – I think I’ve tried every trick out there and still could not get past the pain of it. And if my project required multiple skeins? Dread!

This dread was founded on experience. More than once, I’ve tried to hand-wind a hank of yarn and managed to somehow get all the threads tangled up so that I’m left with a dreadful de-tangling experience. I’m an expert detangler at this point, with well-earned scars. I told myself that winding by hand made financial sense, but thankfully my husband stepped into the fray (after one experience with helping me detangle) and bought me a yarn swift. Happy day!

INITIAL REACTIONS: I am amazed at the simplicity of the design.  This yarn swift has no metallic or mechanical parts to it. Setup is ridiculously simple: insert the screw into the bottom of the swift, then simply screw the swift on a table or flat surface. It’s light-weight and I almost felt a bit of disappointment when I first saw it: it’s just raw wood. It’s not stained or finished in any particular manner. I find that odd for an item like this. However, the wood is not rough and yarn does not catch on it.

THE TESTS:  For my first test, I set it up in my kitchen on my granite island, but the kitchen table and a few other tables around the house take the swift just as easily. Opening the umbrella is generally smooth and easy, although it occasionally needs a helping hand to get the arms to spread. A gentle tug on two of the arms generally does the trick. The umbrella can be opened to a custom size, up to its six-foot maximum circumference. Yarn goes easily over the arms, although I find that it does better to open the umbrella to a narrower circumference, get the yarn on it, and then open the umbrella to the appropriate width. For smoother functioning, I recommend keeping the umbrella a little smaller than it can maximally open with the yarn on it; it spins more easily that way.

I’ve also played with this umbrella on a variety of surfaces, including a glass-topped table and other, wooden tables. It has fit them all quit well, and functioned has not changed. I have noticed that if I over-stretch the umbrella (maxing out its width with yarn on it), I sometimes get a bit of a squeak as I wind at higher speeds.

If you typically wind more than three hanks per month, you should be strongly considering a swift, and this is great way to enter the market.  I would strongly recommend this yarn swift to anyone considering a purchase, especially if you are currently using a manual method (like a chair or your partner) to hold your hanks while you wind.