Two weeks ago, I talked about how to roll a ball of yarn the traditional way.  A regular old ball of yarn is plenty useful, but sometimes they can be a pain.  You could be working somewhere with a less-than-sanitary floor (at a bus stop), or somewhere where going after a runaway ball of yarn would be difficult (on an airplane), or perhaps an ill fate would befall your yarn if it left your vicinity (maybe you have a vicious house cat or sticky toddler?)

A traditionally wound ball of yarn can get itself rolling (and unraveling).  But, a center-pull ball doesn’t have that problem, and it’s almost as easy to wind as a regular ball of yarn.

It starts exactly the same way.  Wind a good amount of yarn into a figure-8 around your thumb and forefinger.Remove the figure-8 from your fingers and wind your yarn around one end of the figure-8 until it gets nice and puffy. Keep winding and turning around that initial puff of yarn, just like you did the regular ball of yarn.  Change directions every so often, and keep a finger or two caught in the loops to keep the yarn from getting too tight.   Just remember that the end of the figure-8 is poking out the top of the ball, like a strange little tuft of hair.

Then, when you’ve finished winding all the yarn, tuck in the end  so that it won’t unravel itself when you throw your ball in your knitting bag.  When you’re ready to start knitting, pull out the whole tuft from the top of the ball, and get to work!