Winding yarn: Six options for dealing with a hank

It happens to every knitter at some point: You buy a hank of yarn before you have the tools to deal with it. Maybe it's a gift or a hand-me-down. Maybe you buy it online, not realizing that the picture on the web page is inaccurate. Or maybe you're at a fiber festival and you just can't resist that skein, but the seller doesn't have a swift and ball winder at their table, and you're being jostled by all the passing buyers, and this is clearly not the time, so you just buy the darned thing and promise yourself you'll deal with it later.

Option 1: Knit directly from the hank
I do not recommend this method! This is what I did, the first time I bought a hank. I was utterly befuddled by the thing. Having only ever used yarn from center-pull balls and skeins, I assumed that the hank worked the same way. I laid it out on the table and started knitting. It was a disaster.

This is a technique which is best left to experienced knitters. It can be done - I have done it since - but it requires a deft touch. I strongly advise hanging the hank from something, be it a doorknob, your left knee, or the back of a chair.

Option 2: Put the hank around something and wind it into a ball
Pro: Low tech and free.

Con: It's not as easy to find that "something" as you might think. Most sources advise you to put the hank around the back of a chair. I have yet to find a chair the right width for this. Inevitably the chair is too narrow (and the hank falls down into a tangled puddle) or too wide (and the hank won't fit).

In a pinch, you can put it around your feet (no shoes, please) and wind it off that way. But this is tedious and somewhat straining.

In charming old movies and drawings, the husband holds the hank on their hands while you wind it off. Be aware that in real life, the husband will lose patience with this project after the first two minutes and will get increasingly exasperated minute by minute.

Image courtesy Flickr/randomduck

Option 3: Take it to a yarn store
Every real yarn store (i.e. not the big box chain craft stores) has a swift and a ball winder available for customer use. Of course, the idea is that you use them to wind yarn you bought at that store.

Do you have the chutzpah to walk into a store with yarn you bought online, and ask if you can wind it up on their equipment? Then you are a braver person than me, my friend.

That being said, most yarn stores will probably let you do it, as long as you throw yourself on their mercy, and promise not to abuse the privilege. It helps if you buy something at the store while you're there.

Option 4: Get a swift (and buy the ball winder later)
Pro: Will keep your yarn from getting tangled while you wind it into a ball.

Con: Feels like it will take forever to wind a skein of laceweight or fingering weight. And the resulting ball just isn't as tidy as a yarn cake from a proper ball winder.

Image courtesy Flickr/meg's my name

Option 5: Get a ball winder (and buy the swift later)
Pro: Ball winders work great for rapidly frogging large pieces of knitting.

Con: Difficult to use while holding it in your hands, which you will probably have to do, because where are you going to put the yarn? Winds yarn so fast that it can easily pull the skein off and tangle it in a flash.

Option 6: Go big (and get both)
As a knitter, it is highly likely that you will encounter hanks of yarn in the future. The "real" way to handle these is to use a swift and a ball winder. You wrap the yarn around the swift, which spins as you reel the yarn off. The ball winder does the aforementioned reeling as it winds the yarn into a nice tidy center-pull cake.

Pro: Really fun! Seriously, it's a blast. I love any excuse to wind or re-wind yarn.

Con: Somewhat expensive. Even the cheapest swift and ball winder will set you back about $100 for both. Then there's the storage issue, although the collapsible clamp-on-the-side-of-a-table models can be tucked away more easily than the bigger sort.

Main image courtesy Flickr/averageshark