DIY | Knitting In Flashes

I mentioned earlier that I wanted a yarn swift. Mr. Aitch didn’t think so but he was reluctant to lend me his arms when I had a hank of yarn that needed to be in a ball.

I scoured the internet and found a site that gave me the basic details to make one for myself. This is an Amish style swift which is horizontal with few moving parts and not the umbrella style that looks like a torture device.

We don’t have all the fancy tools or a woodworking shop so you might be able to make one, too. The total cost was under $11. I can fill you in on all the details just as soon as the skies clear and I can get a decent picture.

Sing it with me….The sun will come out tomorrow….

I was so confident with my little binding machine that I decided to turn my knitting book into a wire bound book.

This book is where I keep all the information about my knitting projects. It’s the record of the pattern, yarn, needle size, date, stitch and row counts, and anything else that relates to the project.

It will be perfect when I want to keep the page open to a certain spot.

In my most cocky voice inside my head I said to myself, ” You’re a genius, Patti. An absolute genius! You can do this!”

I grabbed my knitting book and started right in.

I clamped the book to the worktable.

I “should” have noticed that I wrote close to the inside edge of the book before I started with the saw to cut off the spine. In fact I should have just cut the book apart with a craft knife and not the saw.

Realizing my mistake, I kept right on going. The book was already cut and there was nothing I could do about that.

I covered the front and back covers and punched away to get the holes for the wire comb…forgetting to readjust the machine for the back cover. The holes didn’t line up.

I looked around for an old book that I could take apart to redo the covers. No luck.

So I did the next best (that’s debatable) and flipped the covers around and punch the other edge.

That didn’t work out so well but the at least one side of the punched front cover matched one side of the back cover. I finished binding the book and decided to rethink my choices when trying this genius (NOT) idea again. The cover is bigger than the pages but the pages are too low and almost stick out at the bottom.