WIP Wednesday: If MacGyver spun yarn...

One of the joys of crafting can be the beauty of the tools.  Beautifully turned knitting needles, resin drop spindles full of glitter, and polymer stitch markers cute enough to make even the more torturous lace pattern bring a smile to your face.  There are some very high highs when it comes to the aesthetic as well as practical value of the things we craft with.

Flying a little closer to the ground, you have the kinds of tools that we put together ourselves out of necessity.  After all, when you are making your own sweater, and then making your own yarn for making your own sweater, the idea that you would make your own tools doesn't seem all that strange.  Unlike that handknit sweater, though, the tools we make don't always look worthy of bringing into work and showing off to a group.

I've already shown you my plying machine made from paper towel and toilet paper rolls and a trouser hanger.  And while that seemed to work fine, I think I came up with something even better in the second half of last week.  Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of it for today, but I'm very tempted to write up a tutorial for Examiner, so maybe you'll see it soon.  Until then, I'll try to describe it.

First of all, it involves frozen yogurt.  Well, not the actual yogurt.  The paper cups it comes in, and the domed plastic lids you can put on those cups if you are taking your yogurt to go.  You just cut two notches across from each other in the cup, place your center-pull ball in it, pull each end through a notch, and snap the lid into place.  Ta-dah!  You have a mechanism that allows for both ends to unravel from the ball without getting tangled up in each other, while at the same time allowing you to remove the top and extract the yarn when you reach the end/middle.

Keeping this ingenious device in place with my feet, I was able to ply up another cop in just a few days, bringing my grand total to three of five.

Right after plying, the DIY toolset continues with my PVC noddy-noddy:

It's not pretty, but it does the job.  And let's face it, the yarn is all the pretty I need.

What are your favorite tricks for homemade tools?  Where do you get your ideas?

For more WIP Wednesday posts, go to Tami's Amis.