Well, I got fed up with the idea of paying lots of money for a yarn swift
(
$70!),
so I decided to make my own.
Basically, it's a device used to help unwind skeins of yarn; they're sold in
large coils, and most useful (and portable) in balls. For some reason, I was
willing to plunk down the cash for a ball winder, but not an umbrella swift,
both depicted here:
So, in typical fashion, I decided I'd make my own, and it turned out like this:
As you can see, it's a different design. Rather than have an expanding frame,
my swift has moveable pegs that fit into a rotating dowel. Construction was
fairly simple; the hardest part was getting the axle & wood with the hole
for the axle attached to a clamp so the whole device could be affixed to a
table.
I modified a store-bought spring clamp with an extra piece of aluminum:
This small plate ensures that the upper arm of the clamp is always parallel
to the table-top (if there were no plate, there would be some play in the
clamp). Luckily, when I pulled off the bright orange handle, there was
a hole, pre-drilled for easy mounting.
I drilled a series of holes in a large dowel
as well as a thru hole in the middle for the axle
After gluing some dowels together to make the adjustable pins and gluing
the axle in place, I had a finished product:
Here it is in action: