Another Way to Wind Yarn Balls

As promised, here’s another way to wind yarn balls. This way is quicker if you are making a pile of yarn balls, such as for a summer camp or basket of yarn for children to choose from. This technique doesn’t give the same level of fine motor skills, though, and it’s harder for little hands to control the yarn from slipping off of their fingers. So it’s a friendly version for adults or older children. But the other way gives children more winding practice around their fingers. Choose which one feels easier for you.

The beauty of handwork is that we all get to choose what works best for us. And I’m sure there’s even more ways to start winding yarn. It may be a worthy experiment to teach both methods to children and then ask them which way works better for them. The results may surprise you!

Onward to another way to wind yarn balls :)

Hold/pinch the tail of the yarn between the first and second fingers of your less dominant hand (left hand if you write with your right hand). Loosely loop the yarn around your first two fingers.

Loosely wrap the yarn around your fingers a few more times. Make sure not to wrap the yarn too tight because that will make it difficult to take off your fingers.

After a few loops, slip the yarn off of your fingers. Pinch it with your not-dominant hand so you can wind around those loops with the other hand.

While holding the yarn, continue to wrap it around the loops.

The yarn won’t look like a ball yet. It will look lopsided. That’s fine. This is just the beginning.

Turn the yarn and fold it in half so the ends meet together. Hold it with your not-dominant hand so you can wrap yarn going in a new direction.

Continue to wrap and turn your yarn every few times your build up the ball. Now it’s taking shape. You can turn it to add yarn to sides that need more.

Continue to wind and turn, wind and turn as your yarn ball grows. The bigger it gets, the easier it becomes to add more yarn.

Continue until your ball is a perfect size. You can snip the thread and secure the loose tail with a bit of tape or a springy hairclip. Now you’re ready to start another yarn ball!

For young-young children, you can start the ball, then hand it over to them once it’s past the super-fiddly-fall-apart-if-you-let-go phase of creating them. They enjoy winding the yarn around and around. You can work towards a point where they can then use your hand to start the yarn ball. So you would hold the yarn between your fingers and they wrap it around your fingers for the first step. Eventually, they will develop the skills to hold and start the ball all on their own. It’s tricky to do two different activities with different hands.

If you know how to make a slip-knot, that’s another way to start where children' won’t pull the tail loose during the very first step. If you make a slip knot that can fit over a finger, that would hold the yarn on their finger for the first step.

The other trouble-spot that children fall into is winding the yarn way too tight around their fingers, which makes it difficult to pull off for the next step. Learning tension is a big skill. With this mistake, it’s pretty simple to unwind and start over. It’s best to supervise until they have the hang of it on their own.

We hope these techniques help you tame your yarn collection so children can easily select different colors for different projects. The calming winding of yarn is a lovely way to pass the time. You can even wind yarn balls while reading or watching a documentary. Children love to see their yarn in a tidy collection.

We hope this week finds you healthy and inspired. And, if productivity is a struggle, that’s okay too.

Click here for the other way to wind yarn balls