DIY Yarn Swift

Do you have a yarn swift? They are tremendously handy tools for a
person who works with yarn. As a fledgling yarn dyer and knitting pattern designer, you would think I own one. Nope. Too much money that could be spent on yarn. Back of chairs work just fine holding skeins, don't they? Well... not really. So I decided to make my own.

My design was inspired by Charan Sachar's How to make a cheap Swift DIY. I loved the operation of it, but the tubing on the ends really didn't appeal to me. Hand dyeing yarn is something I am getting into, and I wasn't sure the tubes on the ends would allow me to quickly wind on yarn at a certain skein diameter from a yarn cone without bending or tilting. After some thought, here is what I came up with.

You will need:

1. A wooden collapsible wine rack.
2. A wooden paper towel holder with a base diameter of at least 7 inches or 17.5 cm.
3. A Lazy Susan turntable bearing at least 3 inches or 7.5 cm square.
4. 6 "1/4 inch" flat head wood screws.
5. Drill with 1/16 inch bit.
6. A screwdriver that will work with your type of flat head wood screws.

You could probably buy these items new, but the point of this yarn swift is to make it as inexpensive as possible. I suggest your local thrift shop. I bought the rack for $6 and the paper towel holder for $2. I did buy the Lazy Susan turntable bearing new at a hardware store for about $6 a year ago and the screws where already in the workshop. So this swift cost me about $14 Canadian to make. Not too shabby!

By the way, thrift shopping is so much fun!

My paper towel holder was easy to take apart. I simply unscrewed the main post that holds the paper towel in the center and unscrewed the little post off to the side.

Take the lazy susan bearing and place it over the center "X" of the wine rack, centering it as best as possible. Position the bottom plate of the bearing so that you can mark with a pencil through the two holes that make contact with the wood. Remove the bearing and drill where you marked. Do not drill all the way through the wood. NOTE: Only 2 screws will be holding the lazy susan to the wine rack.

Next, eyeball the bearing over the center of the paper towel base and mark the 4 screw spots where you will drill. Remove the bearing and drill, being careful not to drill all the way through the wood.

You must attach the lazy susan bearing to the wine rack first. Line up the bottom plate screw holes with the holes you drilled and screw in your 2 screws. It is okay if they are not screwed in flush with the wood. They just have to be tight enough so that the heads of the screws on the top bearing plate do not touch them. Be very careful not to tighten them too much; you can "strip" the hole and the screw will not hold!

Next, looking through the diamonds of the wine rack, align the bearing plate so the screw holes are over your drilled holes. Screw in your 4 screws.