Is it Tinker Toys or a Niddy-Noddy? The answer is YES!

I keep seeing discussions about niddy-noddy's on various spinning forums and groups, so I thought I would share mine.  It is very versatile and useful.  I wish I could remember who gave me this idea so I can give credit where it is due, but time (and other things) have obscured that particular memory, so if it is you, SPEAK UP!  :)  EDIT:  It was Judith!  :)  Thank you!

I bought a small kit for about 8 dollars at our local general store.  It is a neat employee-owned local chain that sells candles, kitchen ware, canned food, pet food, small apliances, videos, cards, guns, camping gear... I could go on and on so I will stop with the relevant part:  They sell toys  :)

The small kit had enough for what I needed to not only make a functional niddy-noddy, but to make it adjustable.  Another bonus is that it can be taken apart and put back together very easily, which makes it easy to pack up and take it on the road.

Usually I use just the ends and the two green pieces connected in the middle. This gives me almost a perfect 60 inch skein.  Wrap it off the bobbin, count the loops, multiply by 60 and divide the whole thing by 36... BANG!  A pretty accurate yardage calculation.

The other day, I was getting ready to dye some sock yarn for a friend who wanted longer repeats.  I added another green stick to the length and I got a perfect skein for my needs.  I can add as much as I like and if I wanted (for some reason) a smaller skein, these old fashioned wood sticks are easy enough to cut to size.

Having used this for years, I did run into one small issue.  The yellow arms have a lot of tension on them with prolonged use and it caused the holes in the 'wheel' to enlarge a little.  I solved the problem on the fly by wrapping some masking tape around them, but I think if I were to do it again, I would probably glue them in from the beginning.