The mystery machine

After Stuart Stitchery closed about 4 years ago,  Jackie, its owner, brought this interesting-looking machine into Needle Nicely.  She had had it tucked away for years, and said it was a skein twister.  However, it no longer had an instruction book.  Adele and I looked at it from all angles and tried to figure it out.  We finally concluded that it must have something to do with knitting skeins, so we stuck it on a shelf in the back room with the intention of taking it to the knitting shop that had just opened in town.

Fast forward to last week when Macy, the cleaning/organizing whiz back for the winter, wondered what it was and had other uses for its shelf space.  After I explained its history, she volunteered to drop it at the knitting shop.  But first, she examined it in detail, pushing all the buttons, knobs, whatever.  And lo and behold, she figured out how to twist Paternayan skeins.  This should save some wear and tear on our individual wrists.

The metallic button you can see on the top is the "on" switch.

This is the arm on which you hook the yarn for twisting.

 This is the beginning of the twisting process.

And an almost twisted skein.

This is an uncut quarter pound hank of Paternayan persian.

These are the individual skeins bundled together by number and dye lot.  A different dye lot forms another bundle.