Okay, so I have this wonderful skein of silky merino from a Valentine’s Day swap on Ravelry, and I want to use it.
Being a Malabrigo newbie, this is the very first time I will be casting on with it (but certainly not the last if the hype is true) - my question is this:
When you get the lovely braided hanks of yarn, do you need to make a ball with it?
I’ve looked at Amy’s wonderful video on how to make a center pull ball of yarn - if I need to do that, can someone tell me how to get to the stage where you can start winding?
I took the little ties off that keep the yarn in its beautiful shape and am trying to wind it and it is starting to get rather tangled. No worries…I am persistent when it comes to my wool, but I want to ‘do this right.’
I generally put the hank on the back of my dining room chair because it has upright spindles. Some people drape it around their feet or the hands of a cooperative spouse. The main thing is to keep the hank roughly circular or it will tangle.
You aren’t kidding about it getting tangled…sheesh…this is going to be a long process.
Is it normal to have to unloop the ball as you wind it because the strands are all looped around each other at about 6-8 inch intervals or is that my doing by tangling it somehow?
It may be a little of both. It may have twisted around while you were unwinding it. You may be able to grab it at each end and see if you can untwist it so the rounds lay flatter.
What I like to do is sit down on the couch, bed, or floor and pull my knees up. I drape the skein around my knees and then stretch my knees apart until the loop of yarn is held fairly snugly (but not too tightly) with just the tension from my knees holding it apart. Then I wind away! Hope that helps. As for your ball winding woes, I’m not quite sure what you mean. Sorry.
I just wound my first 2 hanks of Malabrigo lace into balls, I used two dining chairs had the backs apart enough to hold the yarn level and open. I found the yarn to be very clingy and decided not to do a centre pull ball in case the yarn got tangled inside as I am using it.
I am now knitting a lace shawl with two balls of Malabrigo I put both balls into a stainless steel bowl that I have which have a lid and a little lip on it for pouring. As I am knitting the balls just roll around inside, I keep the lid on so my cats can’t get to the yarn. so far that has worked for me.
If you do a google search for “wind hank into ball” you’ll get a lot of hits with directions. I use a chair (like many people here) and then use an old paper towel roll to wind the balls. I just got some malabrigo yarn too and this was the first time I had to wind my own center pull balls. It worked well and I love it. It’s sort of fun to do.
But seriously - do a search. There’s an instruction video on this site, but I don’t think it’s as good as some of the other tutorials out there.