I usually make niddies from a single wood species. Every production batch includes walnut and/or cherry. So niddies made from one or both of these woods are usually available along with maybe red oak, maple, andiroba, hickory, butternut … and whatever.
Niddy shafts, various woods, uniquely turned
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But sometimes, wanting to see something different, I swap pieces — for example, making a little Sampler niddy with walnut arms and a curly maple shaft. We will send you a single-wood niddy unless you tell us you want to live on the edge and try a “mixed.”
1.5 Yard Niddy Noddy
The picture at right shows a 1.5 yard niddy “strung” with a small amount of yarn. Wrapping the yarn following (what I call) the “folded W” yarn-path quickly becomes “natural and intuitive” for *most* people (Pam’s never become comfortable doing it!).
You hold the niddy one-handed at the middle of the center shaft — also, usually holding the “beginning end” of the yarn in that same hand.
The other hand wraps the yarn around, over and around, etc. …Following the “folded W” scheme is aided by tipping and twisting the niddy …or maybe it’s best to call that motion “nidding and nodding”.
When all your yarn is wrapped onto the niddy, you can easily count how many total wraps (“circuits”?) you’ve made. In the close-up photo below you can count that there are 7 wraps of yarn on the niddy (the yarn crosses any one arm 7 times).
7 wraps of yarn on the arm of a 1.5 yard niddy
So the yarn on the niddy measures 10.5 yards –
7 (total wraps) X 1.5 (yards per wrap) = 10.5 yards
You remove the yarn from this niddy noddy by pulling the yarn off the end of any one of the niddy’s arms. Some niddies have “upturned” ends on three of their arms to safeguard against dreaded “slide-off” — the fourth arm will have a “downturned” end to facilitate removing the yarn without breaking it. Another niddy design has “upturned” ends on all four arms, and there is some “clever method” to release/drop/loosen one set of arms == basically “collapsing” the niddy and “releasing” the yarn.
The yarn comes off any niddy as what “rope people” call a “coil” — in the world of fiber it’s a skein or maybe hank == the same as what you’d get by wrapping yarn round the outstretched hands of a convenient DH or around the back of a cooperative chair (( did I mean to say “cooperative DH” and “convenient chair”? ))
The skein from a 1.5 yard niddy noddy will measure 27″ (68.6 cm) from “top” to “bottom” — that’s 1/2 of 1.5 yards (54″ or 137 cm).
