Customer Reviews

Yarn Ball Winder Hand-operated YBW-B

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I've recently started "recycling" old sweaters by unraveling them and knitting them into something else. I wound my first center-pull ball by hand, and it took hours. I had been looking at ball winders, and the hand-winding experience convinced me to pay for the little machine that could do it more quickly and neatly than I could. I don't have a yarn swift; I just hold the sweater in one hand and wind the crank with the other, so the unraveling and winding are all done at once. I don't spin my own yarn, so I don't know how this would handle the stresses of constant use. The main moving parts are plastic, after all. But it's held up fine for me so far. In my opinion, it has paid for itself already with the amount of time I've saved.

Pros: Fast, neat, and the finished balls have a nifty diamond pattern when finished.

Cons: It gets loud when you're winding at a decent speed. When used with yarn containing fibers like angora, your workspace ends up layered in fuzz. Invest in a lint roller. The "sturdy table" to which you plan to clamp this can't be much thicker than 1", or the clamp might not be wide enough.

I am so happy to have this yarn ball winder. It works beautifully, and winds the yarn into perfect little drum-shapes. I bought the wooden umbrella yarn holder also, and they work very well together. I have wound everything from lace-weight to chunky, and all have been easy and perfect. I love it, and would recommend it to anyone who knits, crochets, etc.

I love the yarn ball winder. I think it's pretty sturdy. I'm winding yarn, not rolling up hose. I'm so glad I got this. It winds your yarn into little cakes. So much better than the yarn ball that keeps taking off on me!

I chose this yarn winder for its lower price and high rating, and I am fairly satisfied with it but not thrilled.

I used it yesterday to wind two balls of laceweight mohair yarn, and my main problem is the little wire arm that feeds the thread onto the ball won't stay in place. I had to use one hand to crank and one hand to hold the wire arm. When I didn't hold the arm in exactly the right place (pulled all the way out and straight upright) because I was watching the skein, the yarn wound into the mechanism and caused a huge knot. I had to unwind half of it to fix it, and I had to borrow another person to watch the skein of yarn to make sure it didn't tangle while I watched the ball to make sure it didn't tangle again. [See Edit below for resolution]

I experienced two other minor problems. The top piece that holds the ball is a separate piece that attaches to the spinning mechanism, and the pieces don't fit together as smoothly as I would like. It takes a minute of turning the top piece back and forth and fiddling with it to get the pieces to lock together. The other minor problem is the clamp extends only far enough down to accommodate a table no thicker than 1 1/2 inches. I had to look around the house to find a suitable place since the dining room table and the desk were too thick.

It did take me nearly two hours to wind both balls of mohair, but I was pleased with the smooth cranking, and when I held the yarn arm in the right place, it wound into a neat, tidy ball. It's made of plastic, but it seems like fairly durable plastic, and I don't think it will break after only a couple uses. I would buy it again because of the price and now that I know how it works a little better, and next time I will simply recruit my husband to help me from the beginning (and maybe wind something a little less finicky than mohair!).

Edit: (March 18, 2011) I changed my rating from 3 to 4 stars because I found out that the little wire arm does indeed stand up straight by itself but only if you yank it really hard as if you were trying to break it. I know the instructions said to pull it out "forcefully," but there's a difference between a hard tug and a destructive yank. It now takes just me to wind a skein of yarn into a ball which is great because I'd just about run out of innocent bystanders to recruit. The other two minor problems still stand: if the top piece pops off, it's a bit tricky to get it back on tight, and the clamp both requires a thin table and gives the winder an awkward shape for storage since it can't sit upright. Overall, however, I'm pleased with what I got for the price and don't regret the purchase.

My wife took up knitting recently and I noticed that she was constantly having to go back to the yarn store to get her hanks of yarn converted so I decided to research what was required to do it herself. Bought her this Oriental Touch yarn winder and the accompanying swift and she couldn't be happier. Both are very easy to operate and when she's got some new yarn to wind she just clamps them onto the dining room table and away she goes!

The only 2 things that I didn't like about it were the clamp mechanism...doesn't fit all tables well. And the arm for to guide the yarn I wasn't sure how far to pull it out without breaking it. Works great and I've made a simple swift to use with it...a lot cheaper than buying one.

I owned a Royal ball winder and recently gave it away BIG MISTAKE. I purchased this winder because it was less expensive than the Royal, but it is very poorly made, the silver arm that the yarn threads through would not stand up -- the only thing I liked about it was the way it attached to my table. I am returning this and buying a Royal!

When combined with a swift, this thing is a machine, both literally and figuratively!

As other reviewers (and a little sticker-tab on the thing itself) have noted, you really do have to yank on the metal stand-y-up-y arm thing to get it to lock into place. I'm no shrinking violet, and I had to put my back into it, against my instincts. But somehow, I didn't break the thing, and the arm can stand up to whatever is thrown at it. When the ball of yarn that's dancing around on the floor as I'm winding it gets caught on the table leg, or when something weird happens on the swift, and brings the process to a sudden and violent halt, the winder is totally unfazed.

Great little winder. Nothing flashy here, but it's easy to use and does the job nicely. Just, again, if you're winding hanks of yarn, you're going to need a swift with this.

I've used several different brands of ball-winders in the past, and I have to say this one is better than most. Like other reviewers, I was hesitant to pull the wire yarn guide out fully, but once I did it stayed firmly in place. I was quite annoyed with the way the yarn wrapped itself around the gears on my old red Royal winder, and was pleased to see that this one has an underside cover over the gears, preventing that problem. Actually, that was my reason for buying a new one, and this fit the bill perfectly. I found that to wind nice neat center pull cakes of yarn I needed to run the yarn through my fingers lightly to put a slight additional tension on the yarn. I agree with others who said the table attachment was not the greatest. It loosened more quickly than I liked. As far as shifting around, I put a little piece of rubberized shelf liner both under the winder and between the table and the metal part, and it worked like a charm. These little bugs lowered my rating just a tad, but overall I was pleased with this ball-winder's performance. Yarn skeins, here I come!

I must be doing something wrong as my yarn just doesn't wind up in a nice-looking shape. I have tried different yarns and still do not get the results shown in the video. Also the bolt-down device doesn't hold the winder in place very well on my table. I hesitate to tighten it too much in fear of breaking the winder. It is still a useful item and does wind up my yarn faster than I can do it by hand.