Winding Yarn

There's no getting around it...if you're a knitter or crocheter, you spend some time winding skeins of yarn into balls to knit or crochet from.  It's not something a lot of people think too much about, but I've had a little bit of a sea change lately on my preferences for winding balls of yarn.

When I first started knitting, I thought center-pull balls of yarn were the coolest thing since grape jelly.  Look at that - you wind it up and take it off the ball winder - and it just sits there all cute and still while you pull yarn from inside.  My thoughts were, "Wow, how handy is that?  It doesn't roll all over the place."

Until it threw up.  You know what I mean....when you pull on the yarn and you get this:

That gets real annoying after a while.  So, I tried using a nostepinne.  My reasoning being that if I very carefully hand wound the center pull ball, it wouldn't get tangled inside and it would pull out very smoothly and un-gnarled.  Except, I was wrong.  It still threw up.

So, you know what kind of yarn ball I've taken to winding and enjoying?  A good ol' regular ball of yarn...wound from the inside out.  (See the top photo).  And I've noticed a couple of things.  1)  It doesn't get tangled and knotted or ever throw up (yah!) and 2) I'm not adding or subtracting twist when I knit from it.  No more kinked up yarn as I'm trying to knit. (double yah!)

Yes, it takes a few minutes to wind it.  But they are happier minutes than untangling a garbled mess in the middle of a project.  And, I can practice playing catch anytime I want.

How do you wind?