I've told many people that I when I was a kid I was like the piano teacher's kid who never got away with not practicing. My mom was the 4-H knitting instructor so guess who never got to give an excuse for not getting her knitting done? Not that I fussed about it. I loved to knit from the beginning so I'm pretty sure I was the only one in our group who made it through all of the lessons.
One of the neatest little seemingly nothing but very handy tricks Mom taught me was how to create a ball of yarn that doesn't roll around on the floor forever unwinding itself. The working end of the yarn comes out of the middle of the yarn is wound tight enough to keep the ball from getting away but not so tight it's impossible to work from.
Do you ever try to find the working end of a skein of yarn only to figuratively spill its guts all over yourself? All the time? Yeah, me too. Here's how to fix that.
First, sort through the yarn guts to find the end. Holding a 4-6" tail with your ring and pinkie fingers, wind the yarn around your index and second fingers 8-10 times.
Place your thumb against your index finger and then transfer the yarn rounds onto your thumb.
Using your second finger to stabilize the yarn rounds on your thumb and begin winding the yarn around across the first loops, 8-10 times.
Keeping your thumb in the center of the yarn hole, turn the yarn glob about a quarter turn on your thumb and wrap another set of 8-10 wraps across the first two sets, at a slightly different angle.
Continue wrapping and turning until all the yarn is in one big neat ball.
Pull your thumb out. Ta-Da!!!
Only one thing remains: quit procrastinating and start knitting your project!
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