The sad tale of my swift...a story with a happy ending :-)

A few Christmases ago, DH gave me a 'swift' and a wool winder.  For those who don't know, a swift is like a  wooden umbrella minus any covering. Skeins of yarn are placed on the spokes and the wool is wound into a ball with the wool winder, as the spokes spin around.

 Except, my swift kept collapsing so winding the yarn was quite difficult. I thought 'that it must be me' and persevered in quite trying circumstances. In fact I started to revert to placing the skein over the back of a chair and wind from there...

 Then one day at the little yarn shop where I'd bought my swift, I watched as a customer's skeins were wound into balls on the shop's swift. I watched as 'Rell put the skein on the spokes and then I noticed her adjusting the spokes so that the yarn was outstretched. I saw her tighten 'something' and then she started to wind....

This was the 'something' that she tightened.... a wooden peg with a screw...I had never seen this on my swift....

 This is where that screw should have been on my swift...empty hole...

 That day I could stand it no more and blurted out...'My swift doesn't have that screw/peg thing'...do they all have that?' The answer was that apparently they all do and I was asked how I was managing to wind wool without it. I replied that I had found it very difficult but thought that it must have been something that I was doing wrong! lol
Dear Gaby, the owner of the shop took the part out of a box in stock so I could have it straight away. (that 'screwless swift' was then going to be returned as incomplete) So when I got home I set up my swift, complete with the tightening screw...

It stays up now even when laden with a skein of yarn...(the yarn is the lovely TeAwa mohair yarn from New Zealand, now no longer available)

 Just the novelty of it staying up in place....I love it :-)

So I'm so glad that I decided to watch 'Rell winding balls of yarn that Saturday morning.