Yarn Baller: Best Purchase Ever

Guys, like my new toy?  I'll tell you, the most amusing part of it is having my roommate's guy friends try to guess what it is.

This is the Stanwood Needlecraft Large Metal Ball Winder (hmm, that's a much less funny name than 'yarn baller'). It has easily been the best crocheting purchase I've made.

Gone are the days of balling by hand for hours!  Gone are the days of tangled yarn!  Gone is the mess of yarn in my closet!

This baby balls up my yarn in two minutes or less.  TWO MINUTES OR LESS.  Guys... it's magic.

Let's talk a little bit about why I chose this yarn baller over all the others.  The answer is simple.  All the other winders could handle 4 oz of yarn and this one can handle 10 oz.  Half of the skeins I buy come with 7 oz.  I wanted something that wouldn't make me break my yarn.  What's the point of consolidating yarn if you end up with two balls at the end of it?

While bargain shopping around the internet, I found this gadget could be from $60-$100, depending on where you buy it.  However, buy it from the original seller on Etsy, and it's $39.99.  That's more like it.  With shipping, it's almost comparable with Amazon's $59.71, since Amazon doesn't charge shipping for this item.  Still, ordering from Etsy was about $7 cheaper.

On to my opinion.  Well, I love this thing.  Just look what it does to these three partially used (okay, barely used.  I invent opportunities to use this winder, I admit) skeins of yarn.

MAGIC.

You may notice the paper in the middle of the balls on the last picture there.  They are the labels for the yarn.  I don't want to forget what brand and colorway the yarn is, so I've invented a way to keep it all together.  Well, I'm actually very sure other people use this method too, but I discovered it myself without any help from the interwebs, so it's almost like I invented it.  :P   I just roll up the label and place it on the top of the winder, like so:

And slide the ball from the winder onto the label.  Now, I will have to take the label out to use the yarn, since these are center-pull balls, but it's very handy for storage purposes.  As I learned with my Earth Square, you should always keep the yarn's label.

Now, let's talk about the end result:  The balls.  These things are flat on the bottom, so they won't roll away.  They can also be a little loose and will lose their flat shape if, say, they are constantly being squished and poked and prodded by a certain little sister.  See below:

Still, the yarn won't tangle, so that's good.  The winder did come with instructions on how to wind the yarn tighter, but I leave it loose so as not to stretch out the yarn and make it less fluffy.  At the end of the day, a misformed ball of yarn is just another excuse to use the winder again!  :D

Store bought skeins tend to get tangly towards the end, but I haven't had that problem with these balls so far.

I've used this winder with all kinds of yarn, and it doesn't even break a sweat.  As you can see below, it works on bulky and fingering yarn alike:

The winder makes a little bit of noise, but not too much.  Overall, I give this product two "no longer weary from winding balls by hand" thumbs up!

Earth Square

Well, this has been a long time coming, hasn't it?  I keep picking up projects between my squares, so this blanket is taking much longer than it should.

Anyway, the earth square didn't take quite as long as the other squares.  It was partially because I've been getting really fast with this type of crochet and partially because this pattern was the most simple of all the squares.  It was pretty basic and mostly went off without a hitch, but I do have a few notes for it.

Firstly, I got this new book, Crochet Master Class, which I absolutely love and would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about different styles of crochet.  It has a section on tapestry crochet, which is the style used to make these squares.  I thought I had mastered tapestry crochet by now, but this book gave me a valuable tip.  When changing colors, keep the twist of the yarns close to the stitch and crochet around it, which keeps the two yarns from tangling.  At first I was afraid this would affect the look of the changing colors, but it doesn't.  It really helped me, not having to stop every few minutes to untwist the yarn.

The middle of the square, as with the fire square, is more tight than the top and bottom.  Just like the fire square, I expect this problem to go away once the squares are connected and the stitches are pulled a little tighter over time.

I had a lot of trouble with the brown yarn I used.  I had it in my stash already, but it didn't have a label.  I was pretty sure it was Red Heart Soft, but I wasn't completely sure.  I took it to Michael's to try and match the color, but they didn't have any brown Red Heart Soft yarn.  I ordered some of the color Chocolate.  It arrived in this '80's-looking packaging and looked extremely close to the same shade I'd been crocheting with.  I'm still not entirely convinced it's the same yarn, but it looks fine, for now.  I just hope one day I don't wash it and the change in the two yarns becomes apparent.

Moral of the story, always save the label.

That's about all I got for this one.  Only one square left!  I'm over the hump!