Ever notice how expensive our little fiber toys are? All of these little knitting and spinning tools that we “need” cost a bunch of money. Well, the good thing is that you can make a lot of these gadgets for a whole lot less. I haven’t figured out how to make a yarn ball winder yet but I have made a DIY Niddy Noddy out of simple, inexpensive pvc pipe that I bought at the hardware store. The really nice thing about that is you can adjust the size of the Niddy Noddy to wind different length skeins of yarn.
You may like:
Beginner’s Guide to Hand Dyeing Yarn
How to Speckle Dye Yarn
All you need is some ½ inch PVC pipe and 2 half inch T connector and some
sandpaper.
You can probably get the hardware store to cut the pipe for you but it’s
actually very easy with a basic small-tooth saw.
Cut 4 pieces of PVC 6″ long. These are the top and bottom of your Niddy. Sand
the cut edges with the sandpaper, then connect them to the tops of your T
connectors.
The center part can be cut any length, depending on how long you want your
skein of yarn to be. My basic one is 12 1/2″ long. This gives me 6′ skeins.
I also have a small one for sample skeins. It’s 7 1/2″ long and makes 3′ 6″
(42″) skeins. Attached the center piece to the inside parts of the T
connectors.
Voila! You have a Niddy. Now, you can fancy it up by painting it and adding
end caps to cover the cut pipe if you’d like. Some people also glue the parts
together. Since I take mine apart and switch center posts, I don’t glue mine.
This also makes it great for travel. Take it apart and go!
You may like:
Beginner’s Guide to Hand Dyeing Yarn
How to Speckle Dye Yarn
