Gaming and interesting spinning/winding mystery gadget

[watervole]

 Had a great weekend gaming with a group of friends from all over the place. Old PBM friends (Delenda est Carthago), Redemption and Discworld friends, Morris dancers, local gamers, nephews, etc.

I also got to chat about yarn with tictactoepony

We have a (inherited) gadget that looks like this:




I figured it had something to do with yarn winding, but when I tried to wind yarn on it, it made a ball that was too tight to slide off the cylinder (the wooden cylinder is concave),  the cylinder is also hollow, with a interior profile a bit like and ice cream cone.

One of our party suggested it was a winder for lace bobbins, and there are certainly pictures on the web of gadgets like this labelled as bobbin winders.  (and there is something that might be a lace pattern in the drawer at the bottom) Frustratingly, there are no pictures or videos of them actually being used to wind lace bobbins... (the bobbin would presumably fit inside the cylinder).  I'm not entirely convinced by this, as I can't help feeling that the bobbin wouldn't be gripped very well.

then I found this video, which simply makes things more complicated:

"Vintage of beech Wool Spinning Winder Holder for Hanks Skeins & Pair of Clubs" (Watch on YouTube)

"How to Use a Nostepinne" (Watch on YouTube)

If you have an idea of what my winder is actually meant to do and how it works, please tell me! 

Comments

[lexin]

My friend aunty_marion has a modern one of those which she uses regularly. She posted a picture of it recently, which is how I recognise it.

[watervole]

I'll go and ask her for advice. Thanks.

[aunty_marion]

Having watched the video - which, alas, doesn't show it actually in use! - then yes, I'd say you've got exactly that. It's possible (hard to tell from either your pic or the video) that you could get different sizes/lengths of cylinder. To make it work properly, you'd need to put in the drive band as shown in the video, so that when you turn the crank on the wheel, the cylinder turns too. The extending arm would indeed have held a swift, like the one shown in the video; free-spinning, and the pegs which were in the drawer would go into different holes depending on the size of your skein.

As for the cylinder being concave, as long as the outer edge is narrower than the inner one, it should work OK; you could try a small section of toilet-roll tube over it, or maybe just some gaffer tape, to see if that helps to even out the middle. But on the subject of nostepinnes, I mostly use home-made ones (1/2" dowel, sanded and grooved), but I do have a bought one, which is faintly concave, and have had no problem getting yarn off it. It may be that the grooves on yours are catching on your yarn? Another possibility is that it was intended for winding yarn not into balls, but onto cones! The cardboard cone would fit onto the cylinder. There are some more modern yarn winders which come with a similar arrangement, so that your 'cake' of yarn has a card or paper 'inner tube'. Most just have a plastic cylinder, with vertical grooves, and the yarn cake slides easily off.

Modern bought nostepinne, in oak:


Home-made one, with my first practice balls:


And a more recently-wound partial ball of yarn (the winder-wound one collapsed, so I rewound on the nostepinne!):


ETA: There should be some way of moving the yarn coming from the swift so that it doesn't always arrive at exactly the same point along the cylinder; that's what the modern winders do with an angled cylinder that rotates to move the yarn from top to bottom of the cake, via a 'guide' that keeps the yarn coming in straight. On a nostepinne, you angle the nostepinne at about 45 degrees and wind from bottom to top at the front and back down again at the back (well, that's how I do it!), while rotating it about 1/4" or so in the fingers in between each 'turn' of the yarn, to give a similar effect.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Pirn winder?

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I think not. A pirn winder would need a spindle (having just done some reading to discover what a pirn is).

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing a link to the video in your post.

However, I do agree with it being a lace bobbin winder. It will fit a specific style of bobbin. I use East Midlands bobbins which have a ring of glass beads fitted to the end to weight them and stop them rolling. They wouldn't fit into that. Honiton and South Bucks aren't spangled, but are made thicker to provide the weight, they would fit.

Edit: Could you post a picture of the possible lace pattern? That might give a clue to its region.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The hole in the cylinder is nearly 2cm across. It narrows down to about .5cm, but I've never seen a lace bobbin with a cone shaped end.

I've managed to get one of the videos to work now. (I think both of them work on Dreamwidth, but they aren't copying over well)

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

That is wide, even for thumpers. I think I was seeing it as smaller than it actually is.

Now I can see the video (the Dreamwidth link was missing as well, but it there now) is yours the same size as the one shown there? If it is then it's too big for lace bobbins.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Yes, that one is almost identical to mine.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's pretty much a twin of mine - apart from mine missing several pieces.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Wow - it is a lovely old thing! Of course I have no idea what it is meant to do...

[tictactoepony.livejournal.com]

thanks for the lovely weekend - and the chance to see the curious gadget (also interesting to use the skein winder and see how much it speeded up the ball-winding process).

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It was great having you with us!

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