how to wrap a skein of yarn

This is a great way to store your yarn so it doesn't get tangled, but I wouldn't recommend knitting from a skein unless you want to spend half your time untangling. Wrap your skein into a ball or use a ball winder when you want to go from yarn to knit/crochet project.

I used to have photos, but they got lost. I'll take some more photos eventually.

how you make it

Wrap your yarn around a skein-measuring tool. My husband built one for me that you can see in my recycled yarn tutorial. I went to my friend's house and we built one for her to measure her yarn. It's just a block of wood with two nails spaced exactly 3 feet (1 yard) apart.

Take the skein of yarn off, and hold it in your hands like this. To keep it from tangling, tie a bit of yarn around each looped end where the nail was.

Twist the yarn with one hand, holding the other hand still

You can twist with either hand too. Just make sure to keep the opposite hand still so the skein gets nice and tight.

Put your hands together and the skein will wrap around itself. If you've twisted too much, your skein will twist into a tight cowpie looking lump of yarn. If you've twisted too little, your skein will only loop once around itself. You can go back and twist/untwist the yarn until your skein wraps well.

Take the two ends together, and loop one end thru the loop of the opposite end.