When to Wind Yarn

Q: I've been winding all my skeins of yarn, and a friend just told me that some yarns are ready to knit. How can I tell the difference?

A: Good question! The only reason you need to wind yarn is to keep it from tangling as you try to knit it. The key is to become aware of what you're looking at so that you can see whether the yarn is already wound into an organized ball or not.

Most yarns that comes with a band around the ball, like the ones pictured above, are all ready to knit. This includes almost every novelty yarn, many of which come wound on a cardboard core to keep them from getting really messed up. Don't ever try to knit those from the inside of the ball if there's a cardboard core in there! Otherwise, you can usually pull from the inside or the outside, as you like, or knit from both ends at once if you need two strands of yarn or are working two sleeves at the same time, etc.

See how the strands of the ball to the left lie neatly arranged? There's no possibility of tangling a yarn that looks like this when it comes from the store (unless you have a cat, a dog or a small child who's already a fiber fiend!)

This ball is also organized for knitting as it comes from the store. The label on this one is stuck into the center of the donut and held there by a paper arrow. You can knit from the inside or the outside of this ball. These tend to look a little dishevled on the shelf if they've been handled carelessly, but that doesn't affect tangling.

Below are yarns that need to be wound before you can knit them. See if you can identify the "disorganized" quality they share. Even though the three skeins on the right are twisted, when they're opened up and untwisted, they'll look like the three skeins of Manos del Uruguay on the left. (Our Manos skeins hang open at Fibers, but in some stores, they're displayed twisted.) Yarn that comes like this HAS to be wound before you knit it, unless you are completely intrepid and don't plan on knitting anywhere but the chair you started your project in! (And even then, Madame does NOT recommend it!)