MASTERCLASS

Winding yarn from skeins

MANY YARN producers, particularly artisan companies and hand-dyers, sell their yarn wound into skeins or hanks. This is the simplest way to keep lengths of yarn neat, and is used by smaller producers without access to winding machinery, and also companies wanting to produce yarn with a luxury feel. While it is technically possible to knit straight off a skein, it will get tangled very quickly, so it’s wise to spend a few minutes winding your yarn into a ball.

ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT

For fast, neat results, we’d recommend using a swift and a ball winder. These two pieces of equipment will cost you a bit of money, but if you’re a keen knitter who regularly buys yarn in skeins, it’s an investment worth making.

A swift is a device on which you place a skein of yarn to keep it tangle-free while you are winding it up. The yarn freely rotates around a central point, allowing it to be wound up quickly. If you’re using a swift for the first time, watch out when you wind up the last little bit of the hank, as sometimes the yarn can fly off and get tangled. Then you’ll end up spending as much time untangling a couple of metres of yarn as you did winding a 400m hank!

There are different kinds of swifts.

The type we are using here is adjustable by moving the pegs which hold the yarn on to different holes. This stretches the yarn out more, to give tension to your skein.

You can use a swift on its own or combine it with a ball winder as well - this will really speed up the process, and is surprisingly simple to operate.

If you are using just a swift or a ball winder on their own, read both groups of instructions as you will need to combine your techniques.

SETTING UP YOUR KIT

1 Clamp the ball winder onto the table to the right of the swift. You want enough space between the two pieces of equipment to allow the swift to move freely, without hitting the winder as it spins.

2+3 Move the pegs on your swift to roughly the holes you think will be wide enough to loop the hank over at all four points, without stretching it excessively.

4 Cut the knotted end of the hank, and any other small loops of yarn secured around the hank.

5 Place the hank over all four points of the swift and adjust the pegs if necessary.

6 You may well have both yarn tails hanging down from the swift. Tuck one away so that it’s secured between the hank and the pegs, and pull out the other yarn tail. Loop this through the guide on the ball winder and secure it in the slot on top.

7 Now start winding! You may find as you work that you come across tangles or stray loops of yarn within the hank, so don’t wind too fast, but keep the pace steady.

8 As you work, you may notice that with less yarn on the swift it starts to sag, so move the pegs out to tighten up the hank.

9 Resume winding, and eventually all the yarn will be off the swift and sitting on the ball winder. Holding the ball securely, pull it off the ball winder.

HOW TO WIND YARN WITHOUT USING A SWIFT AND WINDER

If you don’t have access to winding equipment, it needn’t stop you from using yarn in skeins. For the purposes of these instructions, we are assuming you are right-handed. If you are left-handed, use your opposite hands to perform the relevant tasks.

You will either need to place your skein over the back of a chair, or ask a friend to hold the loop for you. The trick is to avoid creating a really tightly wound ball, which then stretches out the yarn too much.

Place the yarn tail across the first two fingers of your left hand, with the tail at the front, hanging down.

1 Using your right hand, wind the working end of the yarn around your fingers once, keeping your fingers slightly spread apart. Keep doing this until you have a small amount of yarn wound onto your fingers. Don’t wind around lots of yarn as it will make the next step too tricky. About 10 winds is plenty.

2 Now you are going to turn your loop of yarn into a ball. Carefully remove the loops from your left fingers, holding them tight at either end. If you accidentally drop the loops at this point, it’s easiest just to start again, and won’t take you long to redo.

3 Still holding both ends of the loops, twist one end through 180 degrees either away or towards you (it doesn’t matter which). This will create a figure-of-eight shape which will become the starting ‘base’ of your yarn ball.

4+5 Fold the two ends of the figure-ofeight together so that they are on top of each other, making a neat ball. By holding this small ball and then winding the yarn around your fingers, you will now always have a little ‘give’ in the yarn you’re winding, so that the ball doesn’t get too tight.

6 Keep winding straight until there is a good amount of yarn around your finger and thumb. Pull your finger and thumb out, hold the new smaller ball at right angles to the original position you were winding at, and start winding again.

7 Repeat step 6, regularly changing the angle you wind at until you have used up all your yarn.