OhEmGee, it's HERE!

The yarn swift & ball winder I ordered off of eBay is here!!! :D

It's a Swedish, Glimakra yarn swift and a Japanese, Royal ball winder. I tried them out and they both work perfectly! This is now the perfect opportunity for me to organize my stash! I can convert all my hanks into cakes of yarn, and i can do that while playing WoW. :)

Swift and winder

If I start dyeing or spinning yarn, I'm really going to need a yarn swift and ball winder. A yarn swift is a large wooden folding contraption that can extend or retract its arms to hold your hanks of yarn. It also has a center post that allows it spins around. You use it in conjunction with a ball winder. A ball winder is a small device that you manually crank. It pulls the yarn from a swift (causing the swift to turn) and wraps it around a post to create a nice, loose, yarn "cake."

I want one. Of each - a swift and a winder. I don't want to order them for myself right now because I feel like I've already been spending so much money. I probably will anyway. They're on sale on the Joann website - $41.99 for the swift, $34.99 for the nicer winder. OMG, they're on sale! I don't know how long these sales last for, but the website says yarn winders are on sale for 30% off this week, and that's why they are on sale. Combine that with the free shipping coupon (on orders over $35), anda 50% off one item coupon, and this could be a very good deal!

KnitPro from microRevolt

I just found an awesome resource through the Craftster forums! It's a very simple and easy to use little online tool called KnitPro. What it does is transform your digital images into knit, needlepoint, cross-stitch, or crochet patterns. It accepts .gif, .jpg, and .png files less than 1MB - outputing the patterns as .pdf files. They also offer ratio options (specifically because knitting isn't 1:1).



I can even see this being useful for some basic quilting…like that Link quilt I wanted to make! Here's what it did with the little 11x37px Link sprite image I dug up.