My Handmade Swift

Thanks to some help from Cliff, based on these instructions, I made my own yarn swift. Swifts have gotten very expensive and when I saw the instructions I knew it was something I could do myself and for little money. For the base, I used some scrap oak wood flooring my mom had in her garage. The remainder of the supplies cost less than $10. I already had all of the necessary tools in my garage, with the exception of a wood chisel. The only thing I wish I had in my garage that would've made this project much easier is a bench vice. I managed without it, but if I ever do a project like this again, I will be buying one.

The only problem I had was that the directions state to cut a 1" notch in the center of each piece for the arms. What I forgot at the time is that dimensional lumber is not a true 1" and therefore, my notches were too big and my arms did not fit together snugly. Cliff came up with this modification, using a scrap of paneling I had removed from my family room.


In all, I found this to be an easy project for someone who is comfortable with basic power tools (i.e. a drill) The chop saw made cutting the legs much easier, but could've been done just as easily with a hand saw.