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.
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!
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