This may get me kicked off Team Knitting.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 9:24PM And I'm sorry.
I've tried to stuff this part of me down inside for more than ten years, and I just... I just can't do it anymore.
I hate center pull balls.
Hate them.
Hate them a lot.
Really hate them.
A lot.
I have owned many winders over the years, from the cheapest plastic one to this number here, the Cadillac of ball winders.
If you love center pull balls, this is a good one to have. It is well constructed, runs smoothly, and will last a lifetime.
Actually, it will last me 12 lifetimes, because I never use it.
I never use it because I hate center pull balls.
They always, 100% of the time, end up tangled. Each and every time. Tangled. Always.
You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're knitting along, and then suddenly, your center pull ball throws up.
This never happens with outer pull balls of yarn.
The yarn around the edge never falls off the outside of the cake.
You never lose the little wick sticking out of the center, forcing you to fish around trying to find it, which probably contributes to the yarn vomit problem above.
What, pray tell, is so bad about this?
This kind of ball takes a few minutes more to create by hand. But guess what? So does whatever I'm knitting.
I'm not knitting because it's cheaper and easier. It's cheaper and easier to buy pre-assembled sweaters at Target.
Yes, these balls roll around a little. So I keep them in my knitting bag. Or I don't jerk them around with brute force.
I pull gently, and the yarn doesn't get motion sickness and throw up.
So. There's my confession.
I hate center pull yarn balls.
Can we still be friends?
P.S. They also stretch out your yarn. If you insist on using these abominations, wind them immediately before you begin your project, and don't store the yarn for long periods in the center pull ball. The tension the ball winder puts on the yarn can throw off your gauge.
Reader Comments (50)
now see? I find yarn barfs to be immensely satisfying for reasons I can't explain. I would never give them up.
*laughing, laughing, laughing* Yarn vomit! That is so perfectly phrased!
I hate winding center pull balls. I have a great swift and a ball winder but I have serious motion sickness issues. When I wind a skein into a cake (center pull ball) I end up so sea sick I can't stand it!! I also hate when a skein isn't properly skeined and then I have a huge tangle in my swift and all over the ball winder.
I prefer center pull balls only because I have a cat who loves nothing more than to "help" me unwind hand-wound balls. Especially those I am currently knitting with. If he can get hold of a hand-wound ball of yarn he will, literally, bat it all around the house until it looks like a giant spider has spun a web of wool in my downstairs.
He is a yarn snob, though. He won't touch anything BUT wool.
I think I put more tension on my yarn when hand winding it. My balls are significantly smaller than the cakes, not to mention that it takes five minutes to rewind a cake with very little tension. And when I make socks, it is much easier to knit from both ends of a cake than a ball. . . That said, I have been winding my own balls quite a bit lately. Some nights that's all I have the mental energy for at knit night, but I can't give up my night "out"!
I guess I'm happy with both ways. I like to start with the center pull ball and when it gets sloppy, I rewind the remaining yarn into a regular ball. One thing I love about this "hobby" / "must do or die" activity are the number of differences between us all. I learn something almost every time I swap ideas or stories with another enthusiast. What a great community. And Sharon, I can't stop speaking to you because you are my "dealer" and I'm not ready to work on this "addiction" yet. (OR EVER!) HAPPY KNITTING ALL!
Ummm, I'm supposed to pull from the center? Oops. I'm a total outside puller.
You will always be my friend as I too dislike center pull balls, there have been just too many tangles! Keep the yarn in a project bag and all is good!
Thansk
I always use them from the outside, cos I hate the yarn barf!
Not to mention, handwinding beautiful, hand-dyed yarn is a pleasure in and of itself! Especially very soft wool; it's like butter moving through your fingers. I'll never chuck my swift, but I can count on one hand the times in the last year that I've used my winder. :)
I can take or leave a center pull ball... so yes, we can still be friends because I too hate yarn vomit.
I hand wind center pull balls sometimes. I use center pull because the ball does not roll around. No matter how gently I pull the yarn when I am knitting, outer pull rolls the ball all over the place whether in a knitting bag or not.
I have witnessed many a person to hand wind yarn and put more tension that a ball winder on the yarn. They sometimes wind the yarn so tight that they take all of the spring out of the yarn.
Also, when I knit socks, I use both ends of the yarn to knit 2 at a time.
i use the winder. his name is Harvey, because one night at knit-night someone got tongue-tied and said "wall-binder" instead of "ball-winder." so ive got Harvey Wallbinder. i wind hanks into cakes and pull from the outside. i made my own holder by repurposing an empty CD tower. my husband the programmer goes through a HUGE amount of blank CDs and DVDs and i keep all the empties. i put the cake onto the spindle and away i go. if you would like one, id be glad to send you the next one that gets emptied.
when making socks from commercial sock yarn (i know, almost blasphemy in this forum) i make the first sock pulling from the center of the skein. then i wind the remaining yarn on Harvey and knit the second sock from the outside of the cake. this means my socks are fraternal twins on purpose if the yarn is self-striping. i do NOT have the patience to pull through yards of perfectly-good yarn to find the exact same starting point for the second sock! nobody has complained yet, and if they do that means no more hand-knit socks for them!
For tension issues, it really depends on the person. Some people wind rock-hard balls by hand and those would stretch out too. I do like winding my yarn by hand, though. I like the fact that I can do it anywhere, I don't have to plan ahead; I can just wind a ball wherever I happen to be. I tend to scare other knitters though, because I just drape the skein over my knees and wind from that. As for making the hand-wound balls look nice, and not fall apart, it is practice, and a little bit of technique.
Amen.
I really hate center pulls as well. I take the time to wind the ball by hand and use small rice bowls to keep the ball from rolling around. I have many, many, many rice bowls purchased at thrift stores because I can not resist them and using them as yarn bowls is a great reason to not feel bad when I end up buying a few more when my cupboard is already full of them.
I hate ball wonders because I really love winding yarn. I always offer to wind friends yarn for them. I hate it when my local yarn shop offers to wind the yarn for me because my children love to watch the swift and ball winder, but then I don't get to wind it.
I have been hand winding because I just can't afford a swift and a ball winder. I'd love a swift, or a person to hold the yarn, both of which I hope to have one day. I knew hand winding was good for lack of tension, or perfect tension, for the yarn, so as not to stretch it. I'm a pretty good hand winder, if I do say so myself. What I'd really like is a person to hand wind for me! Esp. fingering yarn!
I wind by hand, because I am too cheap for a ball-winder and also because I like to watch the color-changes in hand-painted yarn as I wind it. And usually, I find center-pull balls are the worst. No matter how careful I am, they barf, they collapse in on themselves, or the tension inside the ball is so great that I'm afraid I'm going to break the yarn pulling it out. There seems to be no happy medium.
However, I agree with Victoria. When I do use center pull balls, the yarn vomit is my favorite part. It's a way of saying, "I can knit this little pile and then I have to go do responsible household things." Otherwise I would stay and knit for hours, and dinner would never get cooked.
I hate crochet cakes because I just want to eat it! The luscious ones. (Boston Creme, Red Velvet, all.