Today’s video is quite Earth friendly. It features an old kind of technology:

photo by Noreen Crone-Findlay copyright

The Nostepinne.  The whozzawhat?

Nostepinnes are basically friendly little sticks that you use to wind a ball of yarn on.

A reader sent me a note, asking about winding yarn, and saying that she didn’t have a yarn winder.

Well, I DO have a yarn winder. It’s old as the hills, as I bought it when I was 15 and had just saved up all my babysitting  and part time jobs money and bought myself a knitting machine.

The yarn winder is now somewhat fragile, and so I don’t use it very often.

Instead, I wind balls of yarn with  nostepinnes.

My husband upcycled the  nostepinne in the picture from a handrail that we had installed in his Mum’s house to make it safer for her to navigate.

When she passed on, we took the excess handrails down and cut them up and turned them on the lathe.

My bit of Mum’s house became a  much used and loved nostepinne, and I feel the touch of her hand in it still!

It’s easier to get the hang of using a nostepinne by watching someone use it.

So, I have made a video  of  ‘How to wind a ball of yarn on the nostepinne’ in honor of Earth Day – to celebrate a very simple tool that works really well!  Here’s the tutorial:

There seems to be something troublesome happening with the embedding link, so…

if the video isn’t working properly for you, please go to the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xuc11P4Wi4

Hope you had a lovely Earth Day, and have done some kind of upcycling, recycling or other form of green living and earth keeping!

Post from: Hankering for Yarn