I’m making a second scarf! This one it for another niece! I hope they like them. But the yarn I bought came in the form of a hank so I need to hand wind it into a ball.

Here’s how I did it.

First I needed to take it out of the hank. It’s a circle so I put my hand in the twisted loop to hold it and then pushed out the end at the other end so it becomes untwisted into a big circle. My shirt almost matches the yarn! I love this color 🙂

Next place the yarn on a chair or stool or anything that will keep it’s shape without becoming tangled. It makes it so much easier to wind. There will be a little knot wrapped around the yarn, you can try to unknot it but I just cut it and then I had two definitive ends.

Next it’s time to determine which of the ends is actually the beginning of the yarn and which one is the end. The beginning one will be the thread that is sitting on top of the rest of the thread when you pull it.

And the end piece is the end that you pull and it appears that the thread is coming from the bottom.

It’s a little difficult to tell from the pictures where the thread is coming from but it is important to figure this out because life will be more difficult if you start to winding from the end but it could be done.

Take the top end and wrap it around your index and middle fingers of your non-dominant hand a number of times in order to get a little oval when you push it off of your fingers.

Now that you have your little mess of an oval/ball like the one above, take the yarn and wrap it width so it makes a little bow.

 Keep going  until it’s more of a ball.

Then you keep wrapping the thread. I like to wrap about three or four times in a the same spot and then move a little clockwise on the ball and repeat.

 Tiny yarn ball.

About half way there, and as you have noticed, I like to keep the chair cushion on because the ball fits so nicely in the dimples. So, if you get interrupted in the middle of your winding you can put it down without worrying too much about your yarn ball rolling away.

My completed yarn ball! I can now get my needles, cast on and knit the scarf! Maybe in the future I’ll get myself a swift and yarn winder so I don’t have to do it by hand but for now I’ll stick to hand winding my yarn.

Also I do this with the tag…

 Ok so it’s a horrible picture but it’s the tag from the hank and on top of it I tied a little piece of the yarn. This way I have the color and lot numbers, suggested needle size, wash directions and a piece of the actual yarn all in one place in case I need another hank or I might decide I want to get that yarn again for a different project.