The Royal We

The Royal Wool Winder and me, that is. We are now a perfect partnership. It's a truly wonderful gismo from Japan that winds up your yarn into a soft, perfectly tensioned cone that sits neatly on the floor.

I have Lucy Neatby to thank for my new wool winder as well. This vintage Royal was sitting on a shelf at my local charity shop in a box marked 'sold as seen. £1' . I peeped into the box, but I had no idea what it was or how you used it. So I left it on the shelf. A few days later I reached the bit in Lucy's DVD where she shows you how to use a niddy noddy, a swift and a BALL WINDER!! Oh my gosh, so that's what they are! I managed to detour back to the shop on the way to work the next day and it was still there. What a delight!

There were no instructions, and anything with a Krypton factor does my head in, but Andy figured it out and helped me set it up. What a great gadget. The little ball it makes sits quietly on the floor, calmly unravelling from the centre. No more stopping to tug and pull at the ball because the yarn's gone tight. No more stopping to untangle the yarn from around a chair leg. And perhaps most importantly, no more yarn bouncing around the floor getting grubby. The way an ordinary ball runs around the floor when you knit was bothering me. After all, would you buy a new jumper and rub it over the floor? Problem solved! Last night I wound all the yarn for the Tangerine Nightmare.

It makes me wonder how many other wonderful things I leave on the shelf because I don't know what they are or how to use them. Thank goodness for gurus like Lucy.