Nirvana Needle Arts Twister Tabletop Yarn Swift - Limited Edition Rosewood

Heirloom swift! My rosewood swift arrived today. I was able to easily thread the spindle on the base. Delighted to find the base has such a good weight to stabilize the swift as it spins-the whole swift is 2.5 lbs. I have wound a ball of yarn and it worked very smoothly. The ball winder could not pull this swift over. It spun much more smoothly than a comparably priced Glimakra Swedish 100" umbrella clamped swift that I tried and returned. The smooth turning enabled the yarn to not be pulled too tight which would stretch the yarn on the ball. I am very pleased that the new wound ball cake I have done is not over stretched, which happened from the Glimakra swift.The rosewood has such a beautiful high and low light varied grain- is so beautiful that I have on display in my main hall just as the other reviewer has done. Please see pictures. One very small issue was the base was not perfectly flat-had an 1/8" space to rock side to side. I place a 1/4" round felt sticky pad on one of the black pads on the base. Et voila! Solid as a rock. I still give it 5 star.

I really like the design concept of this swift. I dabble in woodwork and see clear advantages to a table-top design over the clamp-to-table versions, which seem to break frequently when stressed. With either design type, though, a yarn swift is the sort of wood piece that requires a good level of precision to craft properly – with respect to functionality and to aesthetics. Nirvana Needle Arts was so close to five stars; it's really a shame that the one I purchased [as a gift for my wife] was allowed to pass quality inspection from the shop floor.The swift that arrived is only mostly well constructed, meaning I noticed some sloppiness in the finish, in the extendable arm assembly and in the machining of the more challenging sections of the hardwood – i.e. the carved male and female threads. That said, it did arrive in working order, and with what is otherwise a fantastic swift, there are three defects that I'm not happy with:1) TOP LOCKING NUT – The inner female threads of the top adjustment nut (used to lock the extension arms at different lengths) was poorly machined. There was significant chipping of the inner, top threads, which further crumbled with the touch of my pinky finger. It appears that the wood was too dry to withstand being carved out, or the woodworker was simply too aggressive. This can't really be fixed; it would need to be redone/replaced. This bothers me from an engineering perspective (threads don't thread without threads) and an artistic perspective (don't neglect the bottom 'feet' or the top 'hat' of any sculpture; these points stand out to the eye and matter tremendously).2) ONE EXTENDABLE ARM – Of the 36 hinged sections it takes to create the extendable arm assembly, 28 of those points are riveted hinges. It only takes one of those rivets to be 1/4-inch out of place to affect the smooth operation of one of the 4 extension arms, which is the case on the swift that I received. As a result, one of the arms doesn't fully retract in the closed position, so it sticks out about 2-inches further than the other three arms do. The arms still serve their purpose, so this one may only annoy the more OCD folks, or those that value form as well as function.3) WOOD FINISH – Finally, the [limited edition] Rosewood that the swift was constructed from is beautiful, but the finish arrived dusty, dry and dull looking. Fortunately, having recently made a homemade batch of coconut oil and beeswax based wood conditioner, I took 30 minutes to polish it up. That made all the difference. It went from sad to glowing, and ready to be gifted!Overall, I very much like the design, and the size and weight is JUST enough, but the quality of construction and wood finish is below average. The item arrived fairly promptly, which gave me just enough time to make some corrections to it before giving it to the birthday lady. If time wasn't an issue, though, I would have sent it back to the retailer and had them ask the craftsmen in India for a different swift – one worthy of the price tag of 100-plus smackers and worthy of a gift with the classification of 'heirloom'.

I spend so much time winding yarn it's nice to use an attractive smoothly moving and balanced swift. It's nice to take outside without worrying about being limited to clamp-able edges and the base is heavy so there's no tipping. Have to be extra careful with lace weight skeins over 1500 yards and although the arms expand more, the threaded portion doesn't go far enough down to secure the arms at their widest so winding Wollmeise 1700+ yards is an exercise in mindfullness - not really a bad thing. I don't use a ball winder and instead roll center pull balls by hand but those using winders for large lace skeins will want to make sure the yarn doesn't slip off the fold out guides.

I bought this as a 60th b-day gift for my self! it's beautiful. Ive used it allot and find it works well. gets left out as a piece of well crafted art to be admired.

This is a perfect purchase. After balling about 40 skeins from lace to bulky weight, I still love it. It'seems pretty and works perfectly.

I would definitely purchase this again it is beautiful sitting out everyone comments on it.

Gorgeous, great price, fast delivery and safely packaged.

sturdy when winding and compact when not in use.