KNITPRO KP35005 KnitPro Winding & Dispensing Accessories Natural Ball Winder, Wood, Multi-Colour, 30 x 35 x 30 cm

there's a knack to using this. It's not straightforward, but once you figure out how to get a proper ball wound, then it's good. Makes my arm ache though as I do a lot of winding off. If I had my time over, I might buy a different tool. Quite often the ball ends up being in 2 pieces.

So I got this off warehouse deals for just over £50. I was, admittedly, dubious. It's a lot fo money for something I'd had little luck with. I've used the jumbo metal ones and the little cream and red ones. They both just snarl up my yarn and are noisy as anything.This is, comparatively, whisper quiet. The volume of maybe an average conversation?It is also incredibly easy to use with a swift (not included). If I had known how good this was, I would have bought it straight away.The finish on the wood is nice too. The clamp holds to the table safely and easily. The cakes of yarn it produces are a nice shape - quite similarly thise made on a nostepinne.Tl;dr - if you can afford it, you WILL save the money in both not buying poor quality, short lived wool winders. And in not having your skeined yarn snarled up!

This does everthing clained and I did not ahve any of the winding problems experienced by others but the table clamp - which looks as if it is well designed and would work well - simply has mismatched screws on the clamp and the washer. Wont hold at all!

I buy and use skeined yarn which needs ‘cake-ing’ before I can knit with it. I am also spinner and need to cake up my own handspun skeins. I have to say I have yet to cake my handspun on this device because of problems I’m encountering.The positives:It works better than my previous generic plastic ball winder. I can’t deny it’s better than anything I’ve previously done for making balls or cakes in the past.The fixed yarn guide is a much better idea than the wobbly fold down one on my previous ball winder.It’s an attractive piece of kit.It creates a lovely ball/cake IF you have two people around - one to hold the skein in the old fashioned way between their hands and ‘serve’ it to the winder, while the other operates the winder.The negatives:If the skein is on the swift/holder with no tension the resulting yarn cake is huge and loose.If the skein is under slight tension the initial part of the cake is very poorly wound and then that portion (a good 5-10g of skeins I’ve done so far) falls out of the middle of the cake - not ideal and inevitably has ended in tangles.I tried to re-cake one of my cakes and found that the portion that falls out the middle created a massive tangled mess - no one wants to loose 5-10% of their wool!Ideally I wanted something I can use to wind my cakes without having to wait for a visitor to come and assist!

An expensive piece of kit. I expected perfection and it falls just short.I’ve always had plastic ball winders that are noisy and just about cope with a 100g skein. This wonder is good in both these aspects - it’s practically silent and is large enough to hold well over 100g of even a bulky yarn.My gripe is about the quality of the cake it produces. It was loose and very sloppy. Lots of loops missed the cake meaning a massive yarn barf is inevitable. Now.... let me clarify..... I caked 5x100g skeins and had to do each one at least twice, most of them 3 times. This annoyed the bejesus out of me. I’m hoping that, with practice, I’ll learn the technique of getting it right first time.I’ll report back after a few more skeins are caked. This is a serious investment, I’d like to make sure you guys out there can make a good decision.

After reading the mixed reviews I was nervous about buying this. I was surprised to find that I managed to wind 16 100g DK yarn and only had to redo one as the centre fell down below the ball while still on the winder. This caused a massive mess with a lot to untangle. I have discovered that if you wrap the yarn around tightly at the beginning until you have about an inch of yarn wound and then wrap the rest as normal while holding the yarn at a slight tension as it feeds through the arm, it produces a perfect yarn cake.

Excellent value in terms of cost compared to other online retailers.Arrived super quick, well packaged and ready to go from the box…but the wing nut for the clamp doesn’t stay put. It has tread, but won’t stay in place, making for a very unstable user experience.Knit Pro won’t replace the part as it’s been purchased via Amazon, so I’m left finding clamps to be able to use the product effectively.

I bought this after getting really fed up with yarn getting wrapped around the gears on my generic cheap plastic red and cream one. After struggling for years my only regret is that I didn't do this sooner. Its really sturdy and the clamp is really good - it has a grippy covering and stays in place even when winding a badly skeined yarn with the odd tangle