| Tools for Taming Yarn: Umbrella Swifts |    | |
Early domestic tasks often included holding a skein of yarn in outstretched arms while our mothers, sisters, or aunts expertly wound the yarn into a ball. If a gentleman suitor was willing to hold skeins for his beloved, marital bliss was almost guaranteed. But today's picture has changed to one of greater solitude, with busy schedules and not-so-willing suitors. Some knitters resort to draping yarn between chairbacks, an often flawed approach. Others simply lay the skein on the floor and patiently rotate themselves around it, stopping repeatedly to disentagle the yarn. A far better solution is the umbrella swift, an ingenious little device for holding skeins under tension so you can unravel them and easily wrap your yarn into balls. How it Works There are several types of swifts. The most popular one works much like the inner workings of an umbrella, hence its name, the umbrella swift. A center pole clamps onto a table. The pole holds several crisscrossed arms (usually between 5 and 8) that sit flush to the pole, like an umbrella. As you push up the pole from the bottom, the arms slowly extend outwards. The entire umbrella mechanism floats on the pole so that it can spin freely as you unwind the skein and wind your ball. The Adjustability Factor Most umbrella swifts on the market today are infinitely adjustible to hold a skein of any circumference. Once you've reached your desired size, just tighten a screw and the swift is secured. Older ones lacked screw-secure mechanics. Instead, there were several holes drilled in the center pole at regular intervals. When you'd raise the swift to the desired size, you'd secure a peg into the closest hole to keep the arms from collapsing. Swifts were used almost exclusively for homespun yarn in those days. The spinner wound the skein on her niddy noddy, then transferred it to the swift, which guaranteed that the skeins would always be of the same size. There was little need to be able to adjust your swift beyond one or two settings. But today, since we use skeins from all sorts of places, the ability to finely adjust your swift to any skein size is important. Other Uses While the umbrella swift is normally used after yarn has been skeined on a niddy noddy, some spinners prefer to wind their skeins directly from wheel to swift, skipping the niddy noddy entirely. If you want to try this, remember to measure the length of yarn in one rotation of the swift. Each time you use the swift, you'll have to collapse it to get the yarn off and will lose the exact setting. Knowing this measurement lets you know how much yarn is in your skein by counting the strands in the skein and multiplying it by the length of one rotation. Keep in mind that the swift was designed for unraveling skeins rather than winding them, so there's no easy way to hold and spin the swift. You'll need to grab a spoke, spin, grab another, spin, and continue, rather like a slow-moving Wheel of Fortune.  Skein winders and click reels (such as the one pictured at left) are much easier to operate for this purpose because they have a vertical rather than horizontal orientation. Many also have a wooden crank handle you can turn.Skein winders and click reels don't serve as umbrella swift replacements, however, because they do not have a flexible circumference. What you see is what you get. The Big Question Now that you know what an umbrella swift is, it's time to ask the big question: Do you need one? Until recently, only small-scale farms and specialty spinneries sold their yarn in swiftworthy skeins. Yarn companies have since discovered the value of diverse yarn presentations and are producing more and more yarns in skeins. What types of yarns do you most commonly use? Look through your stash to see how many skeins you have that don't need to be wound. Or go into your yarn shop and peruse your favorite yarns. Do they come in skeins or ready-to-knit balls? Ultimately, however, the decision to swift or not to swift is more a personal one than a need-based one. Unlike exercise bicycles and rowing machines, umbrella swifts can be extremely beautiful objects, even when not in use. If you love knitting, love the feeling you get when you've got needles in your hands and yarn in your lap, I urge you to honor this love and start saving for a swift. If you don't have an immediate need for it, trust me: Someday you will, and you'll get great joy from being able to use it. If you're on a tight budget, keep an eye out for stray swifts at flea markets and second-hand shops, peruse eBay listings, or start putting pennies in a pickle jar. Available Swifts Today's umbrella swifts come in either solid wood or a combination of plastic and metal. The plastic and metal ones are less expensive (selling in the $35 range) and often more lightweight. However, they can lack the warmer, more aesthetically pleasing pleasure of wood. Among the wood models, prices range from $75 for the simpler bare-wood models (Leclerc and Glimakra are two of the most prominent manufacturers) to $170 for a beautiful handcrafted Strauch skeinwinder/swift. Keep in mind that the bare-wood swifts tend to have rougher surfaces than the metal swifts or the Strauch swift, which has a marvelous hand-rubbed oil finish. Any snags would only happen when putting the skein on the swift, so roughness isn't necessarily a critical shortcoming. Second-Hand Choices Other swifts you may see in antique shops and flea markets have arms that are entirely independent of one another rather than enmeshed in crisscrosses around the pole. The arms either extend out and have a little hook in the end, or they are made of two arms that, like collapsible drying racks, extend outwards in an accordion fashion. Many older swifts that use the hole-and-peg technique to keep the swift in position have long since lost the peg. You can easily fashion a new one out of wood or another material. Another common issue with older swifts is that the string or wire holding the arms together often wears out over time. If you see a swift in such a state, the important thing is to make sure all the arms are there (in some form or another). You can reattach them later.  Talk about swifts in our forums |
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