Niddy Noddy: Yarn to Skein, Balls to Skein
This is one of those gadgets which makes dealing with yarn so much easier for the artisan. Spinners use it into turn yarn coming off a wheel into a skein, and yarn dyers use it to take a ball of yarn and turn it into a skein too. Of course, this is a very old tool, and there are mechanized versions to do all of this, but part of the pleasure here is the simplicity and the effectiveness.
You hold the central bar and then wrap the yarn around the two other pieces which have bumps at their ends (save one end for sliding the skein off). You can see the ball of yarn in a dark green yarn bowl on the floor just below my right hand which is bringing the yarn around from one bar to the other. The left then hand then tips up and down over and over to make the looping easier.
The repetitive motion is where the names comes from as its original use in the 1600s came from someone nodding off to sleep, which turned into a word for a foolish person as well in the 1700s, and finally the name of the the gadget in the late 19th century. All this according to the Oxford English Dictionary which traces the use of words over time. This niddy noddy breaks down into 3 pieces and is one of the larger ones. I got it used and I like to think someone else got some use and pleasure out of it before I did, just as I enjoy knowing I am using a word of such ancient origins. You can find pretty and more utilitarian ones at your fiber supplier.
