Tag Archives: winding yarn

What’s winding.

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Back in December, we rearranged the front room at the shop a bit, moving the ballwinder from the teacart, shifting a few shelves, and adding a new table. That table houses the swift and ballwinder, a dedicated winding station right by the front window, which does double and triple duty as a window display and a naturally-lit spot for blog photography.

A rainbow of CoopKnits Socks Yeah! getting wound and ready for sock-knitting.

The table came from Anne’s mother’s apartment in New York, where it had been living for many decades before it moved south with Phyllis herself. It’s the perfect shape and size for our space, but it also came, importantly, with good memories for Anne of her mother cutting out patterns there to sew her clothes. Take a close look at its surface next time you’re here at the shop, and you can see dotted lines in the wood from her tracing wheel.

Just as Phyllis began sewing projects on this table, so do we begin knitting and crochet projects here, with that important first step: winding the yarn.

Getting wound up and ready to knit a shop sample in Brooklyn Tweed Arbor.

Yarns that come in twisted hanks need to be wound into a ball before use, a task that some knitters find pleasure in, but others consider a chore. We have a swift and ballwinder here at the shop to make quick work of that task, and we’re happy to do it for you. Now that the winding station is such a pleasing place to be, I often find myself photographing the yarns that pass through it, admiring the clever and sturdy design of Nancy’s Knit Knacks Heavy Duty Ballwinder. These photos are some of my personal favorites, and they’ll look familiar if you follow us on Instagram.

Winding Brooklyn Tweed Shelter, a “Hadley-Pullover”-to-be.

As I wind yarn at the shop, I’m frequently joined by customers and passers-by, looking on from the worsted weight section or the sidewalk, just enjoying the simple pleasure of the spinning swift and the growing ball of yarn.

Isager Alpaca 2 and Shibui Staccato getting wound and ready to become a “Find Your Fade” shawl.

Come by the shop to plan your next project, and leave with your yarn ready to use right away. See you there!

Our new ballwinder.

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Yarns that come in twisted hanks need to be wound into a ball before use, a task that some knitters find pleasure in, but others consider a chore. We have a swift and ballwinder here at the shop to make quick work of that task, and we’re happy to do it for you. For years, our heavy duty ballwinder from Nancy’s Knit Knacks has served us well, smoothly winding miles of yarn into neat little cakes that can be pulled from the inside or outside end.

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It was starting to slow down a couple of weeks ago, so we sent it in to be refurbished and asked for a big upgrade: a power base. Our ballwinder is now motorized, rather than hand-cranked, which requires much less of our attention.

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For a long time, we’ve had a no-winding-on-Saturday policy, taking the swift and ballwinder down for our busiest day of the week. It was hard to be tied to the ballwinder when phones and questions needed answering, yarn needed fetching from the inventory room, and a line was forming at checkout. Our new motorized ballwinder makes it easier for us to multitask, which means we’re now happy to wind yarn purchased at our shop anytime, even on Saturdays! Come by the shop to plan your next project, and leave with your yarn ready to use right away. See you there!