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My Niddy Noddy



A niddy noddy is a tool used to take spun yarn off a bobbin and convert it into a hank of yarn.  With a simple twisting motion of the tool the yarn is taken from the bobbin and transformed into a mode that will allow it to be more easily stored.

The name is quite unusual so I thought it was worth looking into.  According to the Oxford Dictionary the term was used in an old English rhyming song:

Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy, two heads and one body.
‘Tis one, tain’t one, t’will be one soon.
‘Tis two, tain’t two, t’will be two soon.
‘Tis three, tain’t three, t’will be three soon.

If you look at the photo of my niddy noddy you will see it does have two heads and one body.  But there was no explanation offered to explain the two, three etc. part of the rhyme.

The niddy noddy creates hanks of yarn that are easy to store.  Leaving yarn on bobbins is an inefficient use of bobbins and knitting from bobbins is difficult.  I purchased a rather small niddy noddy because for now my spinning creates rather small batches of yarn.  Should I get more efficient larger batches will be made and thus I will need a larger tool.  It is possible to DIY your own niddy noddy out of PVC pipe and joints and should I need one that is more than likely what I will do.

As for the action, it is important to do the movement in the right way.  Here´s a video showing you how to use the niddy noddy and create your own hank prepared by Woolery.   Finally it is possible to estimate the amount of yarn spun or leftover from another knitting project by using the niddy noddy and a wee bit of math.


This is what I created from my the roving I put through the diz the other day.  It was spun and then plied with another wool I carded and spun in our last class.  As I mentioned it is a mighty small hank, but it will not go to waste.

So another odd name for an indispensable tool.  You won´t see the niddy noddy nor the diz featured here again, but know I am using both plenty behind the scenes.

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