The other day I decided it was time to get back into spinning, but I'm so out of practice (and I was never very experienced to begin with) that all I can make are short bits of practice yarn. I realized I was running out of places to stow these scraps, which aren't very good but could be useful, so I decided to make them into tiny skeins and set them so they'd be less delicate. But, as anyone who's ever had to wind yarn knows, it is an annoying task. Trying to do it neatly so it doesn't tangle or become uneven is tough-- and doing it on a small scale is even trickier since you can't really use chair legs. (My grandmother always used my grandfather's feet, but even that would be tricky for these lengths. My own feet, I mean, not my grandfather's.)
So I did the only logical thing: I took a pair of take-out chopsticks and built myself a tiny Niddy-Noddy.
As Niddy-Noddies go it's not terribly useful-- far too small for a real length of yarn, and not measured to give a length per wrap-- but for my purposes it's just perfect. And I think the fact that I threw it together in less than half an hour with some sandpaper and hot glue is kind of neat, okay?
I figured I might as well use the rest of the second chopstick, so I smoothed it down and made a crochet hook for kicks. It's a bit crude but I think it's smooth enough that I could use it to fish up dropped stitches or help cast off, which is all I do with them anyway since I don't really know how to crochet.
And that's been my morning! Fun stuff. One of these days I'm going to have to start making my own spindles to round it all off...
