Yarn Ball Winder Hand-operated

I’ve recently started “recycling” old sweaters by unraveling them and knitting them into something else. I wound my first center-pull ball by hand, and it took hours. I had been looking at ball winders, and the hand-winding experience convinced me to pay for the little machine that could do it more quickly and neatly than I could. I don’t have a yarn swift; I just hold the sweater in one hand and wind the crank with the other, so the unraveling and winding are all done at once. I don’t spin my own yarn, so I don’t know how this would handle the stresses of constant use. The main moving parts are plastic, after all. But it’s held up fine for me so far. In my opinion, it has paid for itself already with the amount of time I’ve saved.

Pros: Fast, neat, and the finished balls have a nifty diamond pattern when finished.

Cons: It gets loud when you’re winding at a decent speed. When used with yarn containing fibers like angora, your workspace ends up layered in fuzz. Invest in a lint roller. The “sturdy table” to which you plan to clamp this can’t be much thicker than 1″, or the clamp might not be wide enough.
Rating: 4 / 5

I am so happy to have this yarn ball winder. It works beautifully, and winds the yarn into perfect little drum-shapes. I bought the wooden umbrella yarn holder also, and they work very well together. I have wound everything from lace-weight to chunky, and all have been easy and perfect. I love it, and would recommend it to anyone who knits, crochets, etc.
Rating: 5 / 5

This is a very inexpensive ballwinder, and it works quite well, with quirks. It is a lightweight plastic, and I use duct tape to keep the little metal arm in the position I like it (pulled to the left as far from the ball as possible), and you have to hold some tension on the yarn as it feeds through onto the ballwinder, and hold it at the right level because if you let it wind on loosely sometimes it will get caught around the base gear (to fix this, just wind backwards or detach the ball holder, untangle and replace – it is attached by “notch and twist” so its easy to remove and replace). With practice you will master holding the yarn back as it goes on and holding it at the right level to avoid those problems, and then it works very well. (I don’t have a swift, I use my hands, so maybe if I did that would also avoid these issues). Despite this, I love it, I’ve learned to use it well and I wouldn’t live without it, its much easier to use yarn from one of its balls than from a dwindling, tangling storebought skein. It can wind a ball in way under 5 minutes and save you tons of time detangling. (I’ve also stopped putting off working on certain projects because I didn’t feel like dealing with tangled yarn).
Rating: 4 / 5