Those of you who work with fibers may already know how to do this. It was a revelation to me when I learned it!
If you have yarn that is not in a pull-skein and you wish it were, you can make your own pull-skein using this technique.
For the tutorial, I am using some scrap cotton yarn.
First, make sure the yarn is untangled. If it’s a new skein, you won’t have to worry about this.
Next, drape one end over the index finger of your nondominant hand. Make sure to leave a long tail. This is the end that will emerge from the center of the skein.
Wrap the yarn in a figure eight over your index and middle fingers.
Continue wrapping in the same way until you have a small core.
Carefully remove the core from your fingers and loosely fold in half where the threads cross.
Begin wrapping the remaining yarn over this core very loosely. You can see that I am wrapping around my finger as well as the yarn to be sure it’s loose.
After you have wrapped several times, carefully remove the yarn, turn about a quarter turn, and continue wrapping. I wrap using the finger for the first two or three turnings.
Be sure the long starting tail always remains free! Otherwise, you will not have an end to pull when you are finished.
Continue wrapping and turning, wrapping and turning. Always wrap loosely enough that you are not stretching the yarn.
In the end, you will have a nice ball of yarn with a long tail coming from the center. That is the end you pull when you are ready to use the yarn.
