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The Yarn Bowl is an easy but very useful project that fits the mini lathe perfectly! Click image to enlarge

Knitting Bowl

Easy but useful project

Text, photo and video by Tom Hintz

Posted – 8-1-2012

My wife suggested this Knitting Bowl project for my new Rockler’s Excelsior Mini Lathe. I agreed, especially when I saw that she already had a ceramic Knitting Bowl in a woodworking house. Yes, there was a disturbance in the force.

The purpose of the Knitting Bowl is to hold a ball of yarn while the person is knitting. The yarn can spin the ball within the Knitting Bowl as it feeds off of the ball which eliminates having to chase the errant ball of yarn down once in a while. The Knitting Bowl in this story is 4-1/2”-tall, 5-1/4”-diameter (widest point) with an upper lip 5-1/8”- outer diameter (top bead) and an inside diameter at the lip of about 4-3/4”.

A subtle but important feature is a slight tapering of the sides inwards over the top 1/3 or so of the height. This little taper encourages the ball of yarn to stay in the Knitting Bowl rather than climbing up and out. The angle of the taper is small and simply eyeballed. I can’t find any spec on this so common sense rules.

I made this Knitting Bowl from a chunk of Ambrosia Maple but any kind of wood will work just fine. The key is to sand all surfaces very smooth and use a smooth, hard finish. I buffed my Knitting Bowl as you can see in the video. Yarn will snag on tiny points or nicks so smooth finishing counts.

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