Stanwood Ball Winder
I recently picked up some yarn in hanks and was in need of a ball winder.
I put off for a while, since ball yarn is so much easier – you can just knit straight away, no prep work needed.
But I was really curious about two yarn options from Knit Picks, both of which only came in hank form (Woodland, an alpaca/merino blend and Modish Merino, an eco-friendly superwash merino).
So I took to the internet and looked for which yarn winder people liked the most.
The consensus was pretty universal – a large metal ball winder from Stanwood was pretty universally loved.
(Both my yarn hanks are thicker, chunkier yarns. Modish Merino is a thick DK while Woodland is a chunky Aran weight. For thicker yarns or larger quantities, it’s recommended to go with a Large yarn winder over the small winder)
When I saw the price though, I winced.
Why does everything in knitting have to be so pricey?
I saw a couple people mention they bought cheapie plastic ball winders off of Temu and Amazon.
It seemed like they did work, for a cake or two, but were ultimately flimsy, fiddly and broke after a couple uses.
And they weren’t big enough to handle large quantities of yarn or thicker weights.
So I resigned myself to getting the Stanwood winder.
At this point, I’m pretty obsessed with knitting so I knew this investment wouldn’t go to waste. But right before checkout, I also saw this pretty identical dupe to the Stanwood winder.
Same all-metal construction, same ‘large format’ size and pretty identical look – just 1/3 of the price!
$30 vs $90 is a pretty big difference, imo.
So in the name of research, I added that to cart too and got to caking.
Here’s my comparison of the Stanwood ball winder vs it’s cheaper alternative, and which I ultimately kept!
The Stanwood Dupe
First I’ll say that caking up yarn for the first time ended up being a pretty miserable experience that took all night…
…so I do not have any pictures to share.
You’ll just have to trust me.
I opened the Chinese dupe of the Stanwood first. I figured, if it worked well, I’d just stick with it and return the Stanwood winder altogether.
I’m the kind of person, when presented with two options I have a knack for picking the more expensive version.
And once I try the luxe version of something, I can’t pick the cheaper version.
The knockoff ball winder was made entirely of metal. I wasn’t entirely sure it would be, but it matched the product photos.
It came a bit haphazardly thrown into a box, tightly wedged in and the box was a bit lopsided from the metal pieces poking it out of shape.
But after taking out the parts, it was very easy to assemble.
I didn’t even need instructions!
The clamp easily attached to my standing desk, I popped on the cone and spindle, then threaded through a strand of Woodland yarn and got to work.
I ran into issues right away.
One – I should have also gotten a yarn swift.
I enlisted the help of a second pair of hands but it was pretty exhausting to wind 8 hanks of yarn (and took all night).
Two – the metal components of the cheaper dupe weren’t straight.
The bottom piece would wobble and thwack against the table with every rotation.
It was noisy, distracting and if I hadn’t laid a towel down on my table, I would have had tons of scuffs!
It turns out the wobbling guide made the winding process itself uneven, producing cakes that looked a little rough around the edges.
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How Ball Winders Work
I didn’t know how ball winders work before I got one, so here’s a quick breakdown of how it all works together:
The clamp anchors the whole machine to your table so nothing shifts while you wind.
The handle is what you turn – your hand does the work here. Turning it rotates the drive shaft, which is the vertical rod running up through the body of the machine.
The clever bit is the drive shaft. It spins the cone on two axes simultaneously: the cone rotates around the vertical shaft and rocks slightly side to side.
This double motion helps to produce a neat cake vs a sloppy clump or uneven cylinder.
As the yarn wraps, it gets laid down at a slight angle each time, building up those clean, even layers.
The yarn guide is the small arm with a ring at the end that sticks out from the shaft.
You thread your yarn through the ring before you start winding.
As the shaft turns, it oscillates back and forth, distributing the yarn across the cone so it doesn’t all pile up in one spot.
To help create an even cake, you want to turn the handle with one hand but use your other hand to hold the strand fed into the yarn guide.
You should feel some tension and gently feed the yarn from the swift (or helping hands) to the ball winder.
The spindle is the horizontal bar the cone sits on. The cake forms around it, and when you’re done you slide the finished cake right off the end.
The Stanwood Large Ball Winder
My first cake looked, quite frankly, like $hit.
I chalked it up to novice hands and tried again with my second hank.
I had picked up 9 hanks to make my Haraboji cardigan (a sweaters quantity worth) so I got in some serious practice this night.
The second hank was a little better, but still looked sloppy.
I decided to unbox the Stanwood ball winder and see how it compared.
While both ball winders are made of all-metal parts, the Stanwood winder did feel sturdier and more put-together.
As if all the pieces just fit well.
It was more neatly packaged in the box, and came with some styrofoam to prevent the pieces from touching each other and getting dented during transit.
I did have a bit of a hard time taking off one of the pieces of foam, but eventually clamped the Stanwood to my desk, side by side with its knockoff.
I actually didn’t even attach the plastic cover piece to the handle because the metal handle was comfortable enough to turn.
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After the first rotation, the difference between the two ball winders was pretty obvious.
The Stanwood sat on the table without drama, winding smoothly and quietly.
It still took some practice to get neat, consistent cakes but it overall handed bulkier yarn much more smoothly.
I alternated hanks, caking one on each winder, to give the test a fair trial.
But by the 4th hank, I fully moved onto the Stanwood and didn’t look back.
Stanwood Ball Winder vs Dupe: Is $90 Worth It?
Ultimately, I packed up the cheap knockoff to return.
I’m not sure if I just got a bad box.
Perhaps the yarn guide was dented in transit and if I did an exchange, another box would have had a straight metal guide.
But overall, the build quality was just much more solid on the Stanwood.
I love the Woodland and Modish Merino hanks I got from Knit Picks.
They’re SO soft, very cost effective (the meterage per $) so I anticipate buying more yarn hanks in the future.
Read more: My Favorite Knit Picks Yarns, Reviewed!
I also want to try out cone yarn and wind my own mini cakes. So I know I’ll need a ball winder for years to come.
And when you use a tool constantly, the cost per use drops. On forums it seemed people have had their Stanwood winders for years.
So while the $90 was a steep upfront cost, I figure, over a lifetime of knitting, it’s just pennies per wind.
The Stanwood is definitely an expensive ball winder (I mean, I could go through 3 or 4 dupes over a couple years) before breaking even on the Stanwood.
But ultimately I liked how well-built it is to operate.
And I want to support a family run company that makes genuinely good products over a nameless dupe manufacturer.
I also want to try out cone yarns and wind my own mini cakes. So I know I’ll need a good ball winder for years to come!
Does anyone have a yarn swift they love + recommend? Drop me a comment and save me the hassle of buying multiples!
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