Monday, May 22, 2006

Z's Tutorial on........

How NOT to go crazy while making a bigger skein before you dye!
If you choose not to use the skein as it arrives from the store/manufacturer/etc. Follow my tutorial so you do not end up with this mess!

I wanted to make the skein longer to do 3 colors, so I got the two chairs, started winding around them and tried not to get dizzy! Well, no one warned me about the tons of knots that happen while you are holding the skein over one hand and guiding the rest as you go around in crazy circles..... So after a very frustrating 1/2 hr. you see the above results. I pieced it together best I could. So this skein will not be socks for anyone too many knots--4 I think, but I will triple it up to make a hat or felted object! All is not lost! :)

Sooo if you want headache free preparation for skeining longer areas and don't have a warp board..here you go :)

First use this...

To get this...

Then you can do this....


To get this.....


Now just tie skein together in the appropriate places, remove from chair and you are ready to go and even SANE!!! see...skein...you gotta stay sane!! hahahaha!

13 comments:

aija said...

Yay! :) I did the same thing the 1st time I wound into a long hank, dizzy dizzy with all of the unknotting. (Worse was when I tried to ball from the 40 ft skein... uh, even worse!) Beautiful swift, btw :)

cpurl17 said...

omgosh what a headache. Hopefully, the kitty was in the other room because they love to "help" out these types of situations.

Knittypants said...

That was very helpful :-) That first little mess of yarn looks pretty frustrating, but your little tutorial is handy.

Jen said...

Thanks, I needed that! :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, made that mistake too. It's soo much easier to wind from a center pull ball...that is of course unless you stupidly use a chair and a fan, and the fan falls over turning your large hank into a giant squiggly mess...not that I would ever do something so dumb! @_@

soapy said...

I almost spit my coffee on my screen!!! LOL

Anonymous said...

nice. Thanks!

KnitPastis said...

Holy Moly!! Love the cake of yarn though especially since I have to handwind all mine.

Jen said...

huh... thanks for the advice on winding into a cake first! I never would have thought of that. maybe I'll actually get to dying my knitpicks yarn finally... if only my apt wasn't so full of yarn already so that spacing out chairs would be impossible...

Mary, Mary... said...

You're a brave brave woman for doing that! It'll be a looooong time before I attempt hand-dyed stripes again--I'm still dizzy from looping around my living room.

Criosa said...

one more word of warning: if you're not using the outside of the yarn cake, make sure it's securely tucked and not going to tangle itself around the end you're pulling from.

and if, after you sort that out while winding the hank round your clothesline (hey, it's the perfect distance apart for a monster self-striping dying attempt) and fear that you twisted it somewhere along the way, don't rip the monster hank off the clothesline and attempt to rewind. the monster hank WILL become a giant tangled mess

don't ask me how I know this.

DomesticOverlord said...

You are a loony and that's why I love you.

hillary said...

I totally wish I saw this before I started dyeing the other night. I could've avoided the tangled mess.