Experiments in Hand-Making Knitting Spools
One of the frustrating things about knitting spools is that if one wants something that does more than four stitches per row, all that one can find to buy are these plastic things with thick pegs that are spaced wide apart; which is all very well if one only uses chunky yarn, or is happy with loose lacy stitches. It's absolutely no good if one wants to make a tube from lace-weight yarn with small enough holes so that one can put beads down the middle without them falling out. Which I do.
So over the last little while, I've been looking at tutorials for DIY knitting spools. Of course, most of them are flimsy crap - toilet rolls with popsicle sticks, crudely cut out drink bottles - or require skills or items which I don't have and can't get, such as wooden thread spools. However, there have been some that looked like they had potential. So today I tried a few of them.
Spool 1
* Thick cardboard cylinder (from a crochet thread ball)
* Paper clips
* Gaffa tape
1. Mark the top of the cylinder where you want to put the clips (equidistant)
2. Unfold the paper clips so that they make an S shape.
3. Bend over the small end of the paper clip so that the end is at an angle.
4. Cut a length of Gaffa tape.
5. Tape the paper clips to the cylinder, making sure that the angled end is facing outwards.
The paper clips were longer than the cylinder, but the Gaffa tape was longer than the paper clips (apart from an odd clip, which I snipped with a wire cutter) so I folded the Gaffa tape over the ends of the paper clips.
Then I tried some spool-knitting with it.
Verdict:
Reasonably sturdy, and the pegs didn't wobble. I also like the style of a U-shaped peg with the angled end. Unfortunately, the pegs weren't tall enough to be able to wrap two lots of yarn around, so it wasn't easy to use after all.
(P.S. This is where I got the paper-clips idea.)
Spool 2
Since the pegs of Spool 1 were too short, I thought I'd try making a spool entirely of wire so that I could make the pegs as tall as I wanted.
* 2mm Aluminium wire
* wire-working jig
* string
So I did a bunch of bending and hammering, and then spent a long time tying the wire together with string and macrame knots, then did more hammering to work-harden the wire. The result was reasonably sturdy.
First try with this spool was okay except that the stitches were too big, because the wire pegs were too wide. So I attacked them with my heavy-duty pliers to make them narrower, and I ended up with a sort of cone rather than a cylinder.
Unfortunately, this meant that the yarn was too tight and wouldn't lift over the angled bits, so I attacked it with my pliers once more to try to making the angled bit smaller. That was an improvement, but the shape still isn't right, since being a cone meant that the yarn wouldn't sit right, plus some of the pegs had hammer-marks that the yarn caught on.
Maybe I will try this again with a thinner wire, but tying all those knots to hold it together was a pain, so I probably won't.
Spool 3
This time I thought I'd try with cotter pins, which would be taller than the paper clips.
* Thick cardboard cylinder (from a crochet thread ball)
* Cotter pins
* Gaffa tape
1. Mark the spots to put the pins on the cylinder
2. Open a pin slightly and slip over the edge of the cardboard. Repeat for the rest of the pins
3. Cover the pins with gaffa tape on the outside, then fold the tape over and cover the pins on the inside.
Spool-knitting with this was FAIL. First, the pins were so narrow that the yarn wrapped around them made loops too small to lift over the pins. Then when I tried wrapping two pins at a time rather than one, I found that the pins wobbled from side to side when sideways pressure was put on them; they weren't held firmly enough by the tape. I think the reason why the paper clips worked better in this regard was because the S-shape of the unfolded paper clip meant that the paper clip was held down in more than one direction, which helped it to not wobble.
So... I still don't have the Ideal Knitting Spool that I am seeking. (sigh)
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So over the last little while, I've been looking at tutorials for DIY knitting spools. Of course, most of them are flimsy crap - toilet rolls with popsicle sticks, crudely cut out drink bottles - or require skills or items which I don't have and can't get, such as wooden thread spools. However, there have been some that looked like they had potential. So today I tried a few of them.
Spool 1
* Thick cardboard cylinder (from a crochet thread ball)
* Paper clips
* Gaffa tape
1. Mark the top of the cylinder where you want to put the clips (equidistant)
2. Unfold the paper clips so that they make an S shape.
3. Bend over the small end of the paper clip so that the end is at an angle.
4. Cut a length of Gaffa tape.
5. Tape the paper clips to the cylinder, making sure that the angled end is facing outwards.
The paper clips were longer than the cylinder, but the Gaffa tape was longer than the paper clips (apart from an odd clip, which I snipped with a wire cutter) so I folded the Gaffa tape over the ends of the paper clips.
Then I tried some spool-knitting with it.
Verdict:
Reasonably sturdy, and the pegs didn't wobble. I also like the style of a U-shaped peg with the angled end. Unfortunately, the pegs weren't tall enough to be able to wrap two lots of yarn around, so it wasn't easy to use after all.
(P.S. This is where I got the paper-clips idea.)
Spool 2
Since the pegs of Spool 1 were too short, I thought I'd try making a spool entirely of wire so that I could make the pegs as tall as I wanted.
* 2mm Aluminium wire
* wire-working jig
* string
So I did a bunch of bending and hammering, and then spent a long time tying the wire together with string and macrame knots, then did more hammering to work-harden the wire. The result was reasonably sturdy.
First try with this spool was okay except that the stitches were too big, because the wire pegs were too wide. So I attacked them with my heavy-duty pliers to make them narrower, and I ended up with a sort of cone rather than a cylinder.
Unfortunately, this meant that the yarn was too tight and wouldn't lift over the angled bits, so I attacked it with my pliers once more to try to making the angled bit smaller. That was an improvement, but the shape still isn't right, since being a cone meant that the yarn wouldn't sit right, plus some of the pegs had hammer-marks that the yarn caught on.
Maybe I will try this again with a thinner wire, but tying all those knots to hold it together was a pain, so I probably won't.
Spool 3
This time I thought I'd try with cotter pins, which would be taller than the paper clips.
* Thick cardboard cylinder (from a crochet thread ball)
* Cotter pins
* Gaffa tape
1. Mark the spots to put the pins on the cylinder
2. Open a pin slightly and slip over the edge of the cardboard. Repeat for the rest of the pins
3. Cover the pins with gaffa tape on the outside, then fold the tape over and cover the pins on the inside.
Spool-knitting with this was FAIL. First, the pins were so narrow that the yarn wrapped around them made loops too small to lift over the pins. Then when I tried wrapping two pins at a time rather than one, I found that the pins wobbled from side to side when sideways pressure was put on them; they weren't held firmly enough by the tape. I think the reason why the paper clips worked better in this regard was because the S-shape of the unfolded paper clip meant that the paper clip was held down in more than one direction, which helped it to not wobble.
So... I still don't have the Ideal Knitting Spool that I am seeking. (sigh)
This entry was originally posted at http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org/1021779.html. (Comments
) Respond here, or respond on the Dreamwidth post, as you prefer. You can use your DW login or OpenId there.