Interesting how things sometimes go full circle: A number of months ago I saw something at a garage sale which I thought was an unusual sock drying device. My clothesline does this job nicely so I did not inquire further. Recently I discovered that such a thing as a skein winder exists and that was what it was. Whew and wow! The awareness was accompanied by delight at the new knowledge; some regret at not knowing about this much sooner in life (I assumed someone’s willing hands or the backs of chairs or one’s own knees were the only ‘tools’ for winding wool off a skein into a ball); once again the realization that knowing what to ask is an important facet of contented living (sigh! – why didn’t I think to ask if a skein winder existed); of course, now I wanted one. Word-of-mouth inquiries brought about information of where ones could be found, off-line and on-line. Costing a substantial number of pennies (except for the one in Sweden but the cost of postage balanced out that lower price). A lady at the Knitting cafe described one her mother had had and it sounded perfectly simple so I started to think about design and construction. Googled. Came up with a man name Jerry who made one for his partner. http://www.anu.edu.au/english/jems/rb/Wood/skein_winder.html
It looks quite marvelous but involves things beyond my skills, like gears and thingys. Then, at a garage sale on the weekend, saw a sock dryer. Stared at it. Eyes widened. Eyebrows raised. Lightbulb appeared over head. What if………… Well, I bought it (fifty cents) and took it home, hung it from my clothes line in its spread out form, put a skein of wool on it, held the skein open in a circle with clothes pins on the arms of the sock dryer, took one end of the skein wool – pulled. Dah dah! I was totally in tune with whoever went rushing down the street shouting Eureka when he discovered he displaced body volume in his bathtub or some such marvel. The sock dryer spun around easily and I, hugely grinning, easily and quickly and standing in one place rolled all that wool into a ball. I suppose I could hang the sock dryer in the room where my ball winder is (another huge and not so long ago epiphany!) but I quite liked the experience of being in the garden making an outer-pull ball and then going indoors and having that ball dance madly around the room as I ‘drove’ the Toyota ‘vehicle’ to an inner-pull ball.