What is a swift, anyhow?

I should have covered this when I first started talking about buying a swift, since as of a few months ago, I was one of the many folks who didn't know what a swift was. When you buy a hank of yarn that you need to make into a ball, you can use a ball winder and swift to make them more easily than sitting there and wrapping and wrapping. You open up the hank into the large circle, and put it around the swift. Then you feed the end into the ball winder, and just wind away. The result is a wonderfully compact, center pull little "cake" of yarn. You can use the ball winder without the swift, but it's kind of hard to keep it all from getting twisted and knotted as it goes.

I balled some Manos recently, and you can see it here.