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I was reading my blog list last Thursday, as I am wont to do, when I stumbled over Creativeadoration’s post on yarn bowls. This was an entirely new concept to me, so much so that I’ve been doing research on it since I read the post. Oh, and? I bought two that day. Because I have a problem.

One, which will be the main focus of this review, was from Fred Parker Pottery, in my old Georgian stomping grounds. The other is from LAS, and while I’ll be discussing it, it will mostly be a foil for the other bowl.

Fred Parker Pottery Bowl

LAS Designs Bowl

The bowls have two distinct ways of feeding the yarn. The FPP bowl has the distinct (and distinctly cute) J or pig-tail shaped feeder, as well as offering a bottom feed hole. The LAS bowl has only the side feed hole, with no connecting line to the outer rim. Holes that don’t have an escape route are problematic for people with multiple projects (or who have habitual WIP disease like me). To get your yarn from the bowl, you have to cut the string, or suffer through and finish the project. The J-shape lets the crafter remove the yarn easily.

So, that’s one win for the FPP bowl. This particular bowl, unlike his others, also has a bottom feed hole - an experiment. While it is fun and mostly functional, I have to say I don’t think it’s all that practical. As I got to the end of my ball of yarn, it shrunk to the size of the hole and -whoops!- my ball was free. I solved this with the J-shaped feeder, using it the more conventional way until my yarn was gone. This could be solved with a smaller hole.

One thing that is entirely my fault is the size of these bowls. I can never quite visualize with inches, and I thought both would be significantly bigger. At least big enough to fit an entire skein of yarn wrapped into a bowl. But, as I said, that is my fault. 

Using these bowls, I attempted both center-pull and pulling the yarn from the outside. The balls were large (medium in my head but large for the bowls), so I had to re-size them to get them small enough to pull smoothly from the outside. Both bowls were immediately workable from a center-pull perspective.

I liked using either method, though the center-pull does have that advantage. It has a disadvantage in that the point where there is resistance from the yarn going around the interior loops can cause the bowl to reel dangerously and in a few cases fall over. I could fix this with a hand or using my feet to steady the bowl. Weighting the bottom or attaching felt to make a bit more friction might fix this.

Using the outside-pull method, there was no resistance, and everything went very smoothly. Of course, I had less yarn to work with, but there was also a certain charm in the way the ball rolled around, and it made a nice soothing noise.

Overall, I am pretty happy with my purchases. I don’t think I’ll be using the bottom hole on the FPP bowl just because of the small ball issue, and having no escape route. And both look gorgeous on my shelf with a ball nestled in them.

Pictures taken from the respective etsy shops of the sellers of these items. I claim no ownership

Edit: This review was done both for my own fun, and to help the maker of the FPP bowl. After posting, he had additional questions:

Would it be too much trouble for you to get out a tape measure and “guesstimate” dimensions of an ideal yarn bowl? Specifically I need height and diameter of mouth and bowl (if they are different). whether you like or don’t like the way I “collar in” the neck of the bowl to produce a slight narrowing to contain the ball would also be helpful. The alternative is to have a straight side more like the other bowl you tried.

As for the size, I measured a few and came up with about 5 by 4 inches as the average size of the ball (the difference was about a quarter of an inch either way). I would guess than an ideal bowl would have a mouth about the same size as the one I received (yarn balls are squishy and upon measuring it appears to be about 4 and a half on the inside) and then 6 inches for the ball to roll about in. Currently, I am measuring 5 and a half on the outside. Also, maybe make it taller so that the inside has a bit more of a rounded shape to it. While I measured the (outside) of the width to be 5.5, the height of the bowl was just shy of 3 and a half. I imagine this working out with a bowl with these dimensions:

Diameter of opening (inside): 4.5 inches
Diameter of the width (from the outside, top view): 6 to 6.5 inches
Height of the bowl: 4 or 4.5 inches

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way you collared in the neck. That way I was able to squish the ball in and it would be fairly secure, it also helped to curb the rolling ball’s enthusiasm as it got to be a smaller diameter. The straight sided one did have one or two jump outs that enticed my puppy to come play. Plus it just looks so much more elegant.