One would think that with two (or more) skein-winders, it would make sense to use multiple swifts and reskein multiple hanks at a time and speed up the process.

Unfortunately, the process of soaking then dyeing then washing sometimes means the hanks get out of alignment.   A strand might snag or something in the process.   So when rewinding, if there’s a problem it has to be dealt with manually.  And very, very carefully.

I had both swifts working this morning.   One of the hanks had a tangle and halted the process.   While manually working this one back into place, the OTHER one got slack and became rather badly wound.   So I ended up manually fiddling with BOTH of them on to the skein-winder.   And then they were both wound unevenly with inconsistent tension.  And thus both had to be remounted to their swifts and reskeined again.

I simply refuse to send out a hank that is not presentable and ready to go the minute a customer opens it to their own swift.  After a couple episodes like this one:

I took down one of the swifts and just worked one at a time for the rest of the pile.  It’s just so much nicer to fix one when it goes awry, rather than having to fix and fiddle with multiples.    🙂

Follow