Broken Swift

I have a ballwinder and a swift, but I often use the ball winder and put the hank of yarn around my knees. Unless the yarn is really prone to tangling, like laceweight or ribbon, this seems to work for me. I also rewind the balls the ball winder makes to make them less tightly wound. Socks that Rock yarn is extremely easy to hand wind without a swift or ball winder. I wound one skein sitting in the lobby at Stitches West waiting for dinner. I had half an hour to kill after the market closed, and needed to use the yarn in class the next morning.

I tried using my swift this weekend, and the tip of the wooden screw that tightens the open swift into the correct position has broken off, and the place it screws into is stripped, so my swift is out of action. Has anybody else had to replace the screw and the part on the swift that the screw goes into? I dyed some Lion Brand Fisherman's wool with koolaid and just wound it into a (rather large) ball. That's when I realized my swift was broken. The hank was 8 ozs., so I didn't want to hold it around my knees. I used little figure eight ties made from nylon cord, which didn't take the dye as well as the wool. around the skeined yarn to keep it from tangling. It was a little bit fuzzy/felted from the dye process, but relatively easy to wind, even after I had to put it around my knees. The figure eight knots wind in and out of the skein and then get tied in a knot, not just around the whole hank.

I also finished the third (of four) to be felted Christmas stocking two years late, but it will be ready for next year!