The yarn swift holds your yarn ball in place, and you could just use a swift to hold your yarn while you wind the yarn ball by hand. But a yarn swift is typically used in conjunction with a ball winder, which makes short work of turning your skein into a center-pull ball of yarn.
Before you can start winding, however, you need to attach one end of the yarn to the ball winder. Slip the yarn through the metal yarn guide and into the notch in the plastic disk at the top of the winder. Now you're ready to wind!
