I love my new yarn winder! It works well and does a great job! Well worth the money.

I just assembled my yarn winder, which was very easy. It was so easy to use and I'm thrilled with my beautiful yarn cakes. Most yarn winders I saw were for small sizes like 4oz. I was hoping this bigger one would be good for 10oz and was worried reading the negative reviews. It looks like it can do more so 8oz. It is sturdy, good quality, and looks like it can handle a lot of yarn. Thus far it works great on some partially used yarns I had on hand, and it is really fun to use. I'm excited to have my yarn better for stacking and storing.Tip: I was holding the yarn to help guide it, and I realized my tension made for it harder to wind. My tip is to not hold it too tight, or who knows if you even need to hold it at all.

I was hesitant to buy this as it is not cheap. However, when I received it, I instantly realised that it is worth every cent. It is very sturdy, and very easy to use. It flies through my unruly yarn balls and makes nice neat centre pull balls in no time. I also like to combine 2 or 3 strands of left over yarns to make colourful thick yarn balls. The Stanwood copes without any issues. I have another, smaller winder of a different brand which can only make small balls, I will be retiring it as this Stanwood is far superior!You will not regret buying one!

I bought this for my wife, to help with storage of the massive collection of wool that she has accumulated. Well... She pretty much hasn't used this since it arrived, and I've been happily converting her healthy obsession into an organised mountain of cakes!!I don't buy cheap tools, and this certainly isn't the cheapest compared to other options on here, but like others have said, it's quality that just works. Making the cake twice is essential to ensure correct (relaxed) tension. The first cake made from a skein will naturally be too tight, the second cake made from the first cake will be larger and looser so no stretching.Be sure to keep the wool you want to wrap to the right of the winder, this will prevent the yarn guide slipping and loosening.I'd buy another in a heartbeat, if you're on the fence, just go for it, this will keep you busy for hours!!

I had bought an inexpensive plastic winder before this one and this is definitely the way to go. The metal gears are worth the price difference. I have wound so many yarn cakes and the only limit to how fast I can turn it is how hot my fingers get from tensioning the yarn as it feeds. The speed is awesome. I use some little fabric thimble sleeve things to protect my fingers so that I don’t accidentally friction burn myself. The cakes always come out uniform and easy to use when knitting. The table clamp works very well on a flat table top and is solid once clamped down. And the cakes remove from the winder very easily. I can’t recommend highly enough. I need this company to keep making these so I can still find one whenever mine somehow breaks someday.

I started my yarn arts journey at the beginning of 2024. The first yarn winder I purchased was a plastic one from Knit Picks. It worked ok ( I didn’t know any better). I had a few issues with the yarn getting caught underneath then ending up doing surgery on the winder to get the yarn out. After 10 months of use it became noisy and just a pain to deal with. Cakes were always coming out uneven due to the yarn slipping. It was clearly time to step it up a notch. Saw a few videos on the Stanwood one and decided to invest since my yarn arts journey it still going strong.What an incredible difference. First, the Stanwood winder is solidly built. The only plastic part is the bobbin. It is also a larger bobbin so you can do large cakes on this. This is important for people who like to use the larger weight yarns like chenille. The first yarn I put on it was a # 2 weight. It created a perfect tight cake. Much nicer cake than the old winder. It has a nice size handle and is much quieter than the old plastic one. The extra arms on it are the key. Yarns that tend to slip like bamboo do not with this winder as the second arm keeps it in place. Highly recommend and very happy with my purchase.

A new knitter here. I wound one skein of yarn into a ball by hand and looked for a better plan! I bought both the yarn winder and the Amish swift made by Stanwood after watching a review on YouTube which compared both cheaper and more expensive models by other makers.I tried it out on two completely different yarns: Blue Sky Fibers Organic Cotton Worsted Weight, and an Etsy 100% Mulberry Silk fingering weight.It was very easy to get set up within 5 minutes and begin winding yarn. The worsted cotton wound quickly and I had the perfect yarn cake at the end. I did 5 cakes without a hitch.The fingering weight silk did begin to wind around the top of the bobbin for a few turns but I think this is user error. The cake turned out to be perfectly useable.Although the notched gears are not covered, I saw little chance that my yarn would be exposed to them or get tangled in them. A non-issue as far as I can tell.Both tools feel well made and sturdy. The place I buy yarn charges $4 per skein wound and the price of this equipment was reasonable enough that after two projects’ worth of yarn it will have paid for itself.Did I mention it is FUN to watch the yarn wind up all neat and tidy while the swift flies around like a windmill? Even my dogs are fascinated!

Habe lange mit einer Investition in einen Garnwickler gewartet. Nachdem mir dieser empfohlen wurde habe ich ihn mir dieses Jahr zum Geburtstag gegönnt. Erfüllt meine Erwartungen voll und ganz. Es ist möglich auch etwas größere Knäuel zu wickeln und die Qualität der Konstruktion und Materialien scheint sehr robust zu sein.

Caked up yarn is probably the best thing ever for yarn crafts, it's easy to store and convenient to use. The stanwood does an amazing job of caking up yarn. It feels extremely well-built and cakes wound using it are practically perfect. It might be a lot pricier than other smaller yarn winders but the quality you get from this far exceed the competition at equivalent or lower price points.

[Photo: Cake of 608-yard 100% cotton yarn in Emerald Isle, wound in under 10 minutes.]I haven’t been knitting long, but long enough to know that winding a 400yd skein of yarn by hand is as close to the definition of “tedious” as anything I’ve ever come across. I usually buy yarn in skeins (not hanks), and while skeins technically don't have to be wound into balls or cakes like hanks do, I find doing so reduces the chance of getting things tangled beyond repair.There were many different winders that all had very good reviews, though I suspect the joy of switching to a winder after doing it manually probably makes many reviewers overvalue the quality of the winder itself. I wanted a model that I could use for even the largest amounts of yarn I've ever bought—the Lily Sugar ’n Cream Big Ball (608yd) shown in the picture—yet still work well for winding up remnants and small skeins. I was ready to select a similar model from Royal when I found this one. Many, many reviews for several different winders made note of the noise produced by winders with metal gears (something like an eggbeater, I would imagine, or even louder). I often work late at night when the rest of the world is asleep, so metal gears were not ideal. When I came across this Stanwood model with nylon gears, I decided to try it.When I unpacked the box, I found a high-quality winder that was easy to assemble using only a regular Phillips screwdriver to attach the outer arm. I bolted it down to the table and tried it out with one of my pitifully hand-rolled balls that I had been working from, and I found that it was a little tight and difficult to turn the crank. That was easily fixed by loosening a screw at the bottom of the core, according to the included instruction sheet. When I did that, it worked beautifully. All my old balls were quickly turned into cakes. Then I started another skein of 608yd cotton yarn, which I was able to wind in under 10 minutes. Yes, five minutes compared to well over an hour by hand!I have found that it's often helpful to wind a cake twice. The first time I do so, the tension tends to vary as I move the yarn from the store-bought skein to the winder, especially toward the end of the skein where it likes to tangle. The second time I wind it, it winds up evenly and beautifully since it's coming from the center of the cake I wound in the first stage. Simply holding the yarn taught (not tight) between the fingers of my left hand and cranking with my right, it takes no time at all to get a cake that's beautiful enough for any wedding. ;-) I've wound various yarns in DK (3), worsted (4), bulky (5), and super bulky (6) weights, made of 100% wool, 100% acrylic, 100% cotton, and wool/acrylic blends. I haven't had any problems with any of them.Working from them couldn't be easier. When you've finished winding, find some way of securing the outer end (tuck it under another strand, wrap it with something, etc) before you remove it, then HOLD THE END in the center while pulling the whole cake up off the core. If you don't hold the center, it tends to fall down through and (maybe) come out the bottom instead. You'll probably have a small amount of yarn at the beginning that sort of "sticks out" the top, but provided you pull from the center, you'll go through that in no time and it will be nice and uniform thereafter.The cakes store neatly, don't roll around everywhere, and are a breeze to work from. I believe this winder will last for a very long time, and there's nothing about it I dislike. It does its job quickly, quietly, and easily.