It's just a wind up...............................

I am now the very proud owner of a lovely Umbrellas swift. I was so excited when the Iknit newsletter hit my inbox this week as the boys declared that there were swifts in the shop. I have been wanting one of these for a while. In fact I had originally hoped to pick one up at Ally Pally but to no avail. I had a ball winder last week for my birthday but was expecting to have to ask ORK if I could borrow her swift to be able to test it out. Well I managed to contain myself until I could pop up on the train to Vauxhall on Thursday to go and pick one up, I did double check that there were enough. Anyway I spent yesterday having a go. Ummm. I still need a bit of practice. I have already learned a few important lessons.
Anyway here it is.....



Of course I had to adorn it with my beautiful skein of Camelspin, but only after I had practiced on some other yarn first.
Here is the whole caboodle set up for action............



......the coffee table is perfect for fixing the two up. I just pull up a chair and start winding. Well that is the theory and before I managed to get these lovely little yarn cakes there was definately some yarn cake masacre.



They really do look good enough to eat. Going clockwise starting on the left we have Handmaiden Camelspin, Hipknits silk at the back and then Fyberspates laceweight 100% silk. (The laceweight silk is for a secret project - more details next month on that one.)
So what have I learned about skein winding?
1) Get the children out of the way while you are learning
2) Don't let the little lever on the ball winder drop
3) Don't take your eye off the ballwinder (despite doing this I still got tangled up several times and had to remove the bobbin
4) Don't let the skein get too low on the swift otherwise it catches on the string holding the arms together
5) Don't pull the skein too tight
I also decided to look at the instructions for the ball winder after I had finished and discovered I should have pulled the little lever out - that would have stopped it hitting the bobbin.
So there is still much to learn about ball winding.
My next task is to make a bag to store my swift in. I am thinking about some lovely Cath Kidston Fabric I have stashed away in the loft. I will show any progress at a later date. This may be much later as the Yoga mat bag (holdall) is still waiting to be sewn together. It took me 8 months to brave cutting out the fabric.