My First Niddy Noddy!

In my new hobby, recycling yarn, I found that I have a serious need for a niddy noddy. I read about them on the web, priced them out on websites, and found several blogs about making your own. Now.... Let me tell you that the notion of making one of these very handy devices out of PVC pipe intrigued me.

Since my wonderful husband works for a large name hardware store (use your imagination, you'll figure it out!) I figured I could just ask him to pick up the supplies on his way home from work.... a week ago.... So last night on my way home from work, I stopped and picked up the pieces I would need for the adventure.

Step one: Figure out how a 5 foot tall woman is going to reach the 1/2 inch PVC pipe that is located 8 feet off the ground at the home improvement store. I grabbed a short length of fat PVC pipe and began waving it over my head trying to knock down a piece of pipe. That's when a kind gentleman in an orange apron came and told me that I was going to hurt myself and possibly others that way. He got the pipe for me. =)

1/2 inch PVC pipe comes in 10 foot long pieces. Keep that in mind if you plan on doing this because it DOESN'T FIT IN YOUR CAR!!!! Ugh. I ended up bending the crap out of it, winding it around the passenger's seat, two children's car seats and eventually had about 2 feet hanging out a back window. Yeah... scared the crap out of me. There was so much tension on that piece of pipe that I was afraid it would sproing back and kill me as I drove home. It didn't.

I read a lot of different blogs about how to make the Niddy Noddy. One said to make the center pipe 15 inches and each arm 4.5 inches to produce a 2 yard hank. Ok... That's 33 inches. I have 10 FEET! I can make more than one! I also bought a coping saw to cut through the pipe.

ADVICE: If you are going to do this... Get a friend to help. Round pipe ROLLS all over the place when you try to cut it with a saw. You need 4 hands ... minimum. I did not have 4 hands. Just me. So... let's just say that I'm glad I have more pipe!

Ok. Pieces cut. Now, I used "T" joints to put it together. Taa daa! It isn't pretty, but it sure LOOKS like a niddy noddy!

I took some of my reclaimed cheap acrylic camouflage yarn and started to play with my new toy. I started with cheap yarn because I didn't want to screw up on the good stuff. Guess what!!!! The hank was exactly 2 yards around!!! Bless that blogger whose name I cannot remember!

I wound and washed two hanks of yarn and hung them to dry last night. I promise to post more pictures as they come. I feel so empowered that I'm actually contemplating dying yarn!! Ok.. we'll save that for another day!