Spinner's Alphabet: What Begins With N? Niddy-Noddy!

By Amelia © August 10, 2026

N

is for niddy-noddy, a tool many spinners have with their wheel, e-spinner or spindles. I like my body-noddies, as I always have them with me. When you get into lots of spinning, you may decide to upgrade to a skeiner to make skeins, as it's less stress on your body than a niddy-noddy, and faster as well.

My favorite niddy-noddy has a nostepinne as its center bar - another N! I do love a good multi-use tool. Nostepinnes are fairly simple, lightly sloped sticks used to wind a center-pull ball. the slight slope makes it so you can slide the ball off easily once its wound.

We usually skein up from the bobbin to wash the yarn, and then wind it into a ball to keep it under control when we knit, crochet, or wind it onto a shuttle or warping board for weaving.

One of the most important things about making a skein on a niddy noddy is to wind it properly so that it comes off without any crossed yarns. There's a rhyme used to set one up for the rhythm of the winding - do I know it? no. So I will let you google it. But I usually do it by making two Vs on opposite sides of my niddy noddy. And if I get my grip right, it's a gentle swooping motion with the hand holding the 'noddy while the other hand goes up and down making V after V after V.

Second most important is how you place your ties. I did a youtube on this a while ago, on a skeiner. When the skein is made off the bobbin, I like to make one tie with the inside end and 3 with the outside end, so that when I reskein it or wind it into a ball I can easily find the outside end to wind from. It re-winds much easier from the outside end.

But those boddy-noddies? The small one, used for samples, is your bent arm, winding between tumb-and-fingers and under your elbow. The large one, used for bobbin-fulls and spindle-fulls, is your bent leg, winding over your knee and under your foot. I do like that I have them both with me at the ready. When I'm travelling, those are the niddy-noddies I use, so there's more room for fiber and one less tool to track.

Do you have a spinner's alphabet N? Or a favorite style of niddy-noddy? Let us know in the comments. And come back in a fortnight to see what O is...

~~~~
© August 10, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/