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I am not as smart as I (sometimes) think I am
Posted on | November 13, 2007 | 13 Comments
Sarah makes incredibly beautiful “yarn bowls” and in a thread on Ravelry, she mentioned she was coming to SAFF and would bring any orders with her, thus saving on shipping costs. Since I’m a big fan of pottery, especially that made by small artisans, I HAD to take a look at her yarn bowls. In fact, all of her pottery is lovely, and functional.
Sarah’s yarn bowls feature a hole to thread your yarn through, so your center pull ball doesn’t roll away from you as you’re knitting and become the cat’s plaything. When I saw that, I had this half-baked thought: what if she put TWO holes in the bowl, and I could use it to ply from a center pull ball? Sarah gladly modified my yarn bowl to make it a plying bowl, and I ran into her and her adorable son at Jana‘s booth and brought the bowl home, where it sat on my armoire, holding a skein of yarn (of course), until last night.
Remember the bobbin of singles I spun last week? I wound them into a center pull ball and put the ball in the bowl.
I sat down at the wheel and started to ply. It didn’t work. The two ends got tangled up on each other and I had to break it off.
I commenced plying as I normally do, with my thumb stuck inside the middle of the ball and turning the ball as the outer ply rotates around. This method is effective, but it keeps me tied to the wheel until the plying is finished for fear that if I put the ball down, I’ll come back to a huge, snarled mess. Phooey.
I’m not regretting my purchase, though!
I really love this bowl and it’s still functional as a holder for my yarn while I’m knitting, and it also takes a pretty good photo! I wonder if I could talk Sarah into trading pottery for handspun?
Comments
13 Responses to “I am not as smart as I (sometimes) think I am”
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November 13th, 2007 @ 10:10 am
That is an amazing idea! I love the yarn and bowl together…what a nice color combo.
November 13th, 2007 @ 10:15 am
Was it the ball spinning in the bowl that was the problem? Nothing anchoring it? I’ve just spent the weekend plying (four skeins!), so these sorts of problems and solutions are fresh on my mind. I quickly became enamored of chain-plying, however, and everything else took a back seat.
But it seems like this _should_ work, somehow. A bowl with a center stem?…
November 13th, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Oh man! People! Stop with the easy purchasing links already! How am I supposed to resist???
Lovely yarn btw. :)
November 13th, 2007 @ 11:41 am
Pretty pretty bowl. I think the ball MUST turn to keep the strands separate – if not, the one from the outside will always tangle around the stationary one from the inside.
November 13th, 2007 @ 2:45 pm
Both are so pretty! I love that yarn. I got one of those bowls too. I thought about the plying but figured you’d need at least two bowls. I didn’t think about going from each end of the skein.
November 13th, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
Yes, yes and yes.
November 13th, 2007 @ 11:43 pm
Love that little bowl. It is a shame that it didn’t work. Did you try just using 1 hole for the outside and pulling the center out like normal?
November 14th, 2007 @ 5:22 am
that bowl is beautiful. i’m wondering — what if she made the holes large enough to fit a small dowel. then you put the dowel through the yarn cake and secure the yarn in the bowl by slipping the two ends of the dowels into the holes.
November 14th, 2007 @ 6:56 am
I ply from a center-pull ball, too. When I need to get up in the middle of plying, I take a clean test-tube, put my thumb (the one in
the center of the ball) on the closed end of the tube and just slide the ball onto the tube. Works like a charm. If you don’t have
any test-tubes laying around, a taper candle should work just the same. I’d use an unused one and put your thumb on the wick end. To
get the ball back onto your thumb, just reverse the process: put your thumb on the wick end and slide it back onto your thumb. Make
sure your thumb is always pressed to the candle or you can get off center in the ball and we all know what a huge mess that makes.
Happy plying!
November 14th, 2007 @ 6:59 am
I don’t know about the bowl, but that last photo of handspun is GORGEOUS! Love the perfect, perfect fall colors.
November 14th, 2007 @ 7:10 am
Hmmmm….it seems such a brilliant idea would surely work. Innovative. Truly.
You can still use the bowl if you do stranded colour work – or 2 socks on 2 circs – or both sleeves at the same time. Tangles may still occur but you can just lift the balls/cakes for easy detangling.
I saw one of her bowls at Turtlegirls, they are lovely.
As is your handspun!
November 14th, 2007 @ 8:26 am
lovely yarn –lovely bowl!
I would not regret the purchase either!
November 14th, 2007 @ 11:19 am
I love, love, love all pottery too!! This bowl is so pretty and I like the idea of the two holes for yarn….seems like it would have worked perfectly!! Your yarn looks GREAT!!