Twisting fringe the fast way......

I thought I'd share how I twist fringe the fast way. Since I do a lot of it I need for it to be quick and efficient. I was so thrilled a number of years ago when there was a new hair craze (I think for little girls) of twisting hair. Many stores/drugstores had the Conair Hair Twister.....and a few months later when the fad died out they were on clearance. All of us local weavers hit the stores buying them up.And you know, of course, I bought a second one just in case the first broke and I couldn't find anymore.  It's battery operated, batteries last a long time in it. Now, of course, they've disappeared but I did hear from someone that they found another brand on Amazon - search under hair twister or hair braider for it.  I do have one of the manual fringe twisters made by a weaver, it's really nice but not as fast and requires extra work on my part, not to mention need 2 hands.

I start out by laying the item on my rotary cutting board - it's great because of the marked off inch gridlines that make it easy to measure where to tie the knot so they're all the same length. I do put weight on the fabric end to keep it from moving....usually whatever is handy, like cones of yarn. I insert the 2 sections to be twisted into the ends of the fringe twister. I push the button forward and it twists the fringe.

Then I push the the button in the opposite direction and the entire head of the unit twists in the other direction to twist them together (see below). It is so fast! What a lifesaver. Usually my knots aren't tied that short but this is a throw and I didn't think having a long fringe was the best for it.

AFter all the twisting is finished I pull out my rotary cutter and trim the ends to a perfect length. Usually I use a longer ruler but I was too lazy to walk in the other room to get the longer one sitting next to the sewing machine. Below is a picture of the finished fringe along with the fringe twister (hair twister). I twisted lots of fringe yesterday working on two chenille throws.