Making a Larger Center-Pull Ball

We have all been there: you reach into the center of your skein to try to pull out the yarn end, and out comes a big blob of tangled yarn! Ugh! In this video, Brenda will show you how she deals with this and demonstrates how to wind up a center-pull ball from this “yarn-barf.”

First, you will need to locate the yarn end within the tangles. Next, you hold the yarn tail to the palm of your hand, and extend your forefinger and thumb from your non-dominant hand. Wrap the yarn around your finger and thumb in a figure-eight pattern several times. Pinching the loops at the center so that it does not come apart, carefully remove the yarn loops and fold them around your index finger, keeping the tip of the finger pointing at the center of the figure-eight.

Next, wrap the yarn around the folded loops that cover your finger to anchor them in place. Continue wrapping yarn around your finger at a diagonal to form a ball of yarn, all the while keeping hold of the beginning yarn end in the palm of your hand. As long as you keep your finger in the yarn ball, you will be able to use this as a center-pull ball when you are finished. Rotate or spin the ball on your finger as you wrap the yarn to achieve a good distribution of yarn around the ball. Keep in mind that it is OK to cut the yarn if it seems hopelessly tangled. This will allow you to untangle the yarn much more quickly.

After you have wrapped up all of the extra messy yarn, you can tuck it into the original skein, or you can just keep the two balls next to each other (and connected), or you can just keep winding from the original skein. Yarn-barfs happen to us all. With a little bit of practice, we can deal with the resulting mess quickly and get to the fun part: crocheting!