Rewind yarn into a ball

[Wayfairers]

I've seen some things about rewinding yarn into a ball when crocheting. Seems like whether or not it is done is personal preference.

Why is it done and how do you do it?

[redrosesdz]

If you buy yarn that's in a twist, it needs to be wound into a ball to keep it from knotting. Yarn from the big brands and big box stores already come wound in a skein, ball or cone. It's not necessary to rewind it into a ball, unless it's your preference.

 

If you do wind yarn into a ball, make sure that it's not too tight. You can damage yarn by winding it in a tight ball.

 

What I do is pull the center of a skein. Sometimes it comes out in a small wad, called yarn barf. I put the skein in a mesh laundry bag. I pull the center's end through a hole. The yarn doesn't knot, pulls easily, stays clean and doesn't roll. I get the bags at the dollar store.

[magiccrochetfan]

To add to what Sharon said, here is a blog entry from Berroco yarn company that shows different ways yarn is packaged for sale and has a video of how to wind a hank.  https://blog.berroco.com/2012/11/27/ask-amanda-how-do-i-wind-yarn-into-a-ball/

 

you have to be careful with hanks because if you get in a hurry or try to yank on the yarn you can end up with a big tangle.  Even with a hank, you don't absolutely have to wind it into a cake or ball before working with it.  I have worked directly from the hank, with a cooperative yarn that was easy to move out from the hank and didn't want to stick to itself, wasn't crossed in the hank, etc.  

 

with balls or cakes i usually work form the outside because I don't like yarn barf.

 

Lots of approaches to working with yarn, like most everything else  :-)  

[USpolishgirl]

A different reason for rewinding...

 

I never had to rewind a yarn until now. Before Christmas I bought 6 skeins of "Scarfie" yarn to make 6 scarf's..  That is a shaded yarn, each shade goes for many yards (very long). It goes from dark to medium to light color. When I started first scarf after few hours of work I discover a nut and the whole medium shade color was GONE!. So going from dark to light it looked like I was using "scraps" for that scarf. So I started the other end working on narrower scarf. I thought that maybe I would at least get a smaller scarf out of that. NO Luck again!, same thing. And that was after couple hours of crocheting. So I wasted at least 3 or 4 hours for nothing!

 

What made that worse for me it was knowing that I have 5 more skeins of that yarn!. And I sure as heck wasn't going to waist again hours of my crocheting for nothing!. I said to my self: "Before I start working on another scarf I will need to rewind that first. To see WHAT is happening with that skein??". So far I made 2 more scarf's. And yes it took about 1 hour to rewind one skein (lot of yardage). But that is better than waist few hours for nothing.

 

Here is a link to that yarn. You can see pictures of those scarf's there.  How long those different color sections are. Loosing one section would NOT make a nice looking scarf.

 

http://www.joann.com/lion-brand-scarfie-yarn/zprd_14470298a.html

 

Krys

PS: That second skein had 1 nut. But only a small part of one color was missing, so it worked out. The third one was perfect. I have no idea how bad or good the other 3 skeins are...?

[magiccrochetfan]

That's a good point about checking the yarn as it's rewound. And if there are too many knots or other problems, often the manufacturer will replace the bad skein. But even one knot is bad when it disrupts the color sequence.