One of the reasons that I love local yarn stores is because they often ask if you want your yarn caked. I can’t emphasize enough how lovely caked yarn is as opposed to yarn in balls or skeins from Michaels, so when I found this hack for caking your yarn without using a yarn swift, I was very excited.

• 1 skein of yarn (unwound)
• 1 marker

Tutorial by ChiWei at One Dog Woof 

I highly recommend keeping the unwound yarn around your knees or the back of a chair, as leaving it loose often leads to disaster and too many knots to count. Winding by hand does take a while, but I find the repetition soothing, and if you do it while watching a movie or TV show, it flies by.

I have grown to love center-pull yarn cakes above all else for a few reasons.
One: Yarn cakes don’t roll when you pull on the yarn. This makes them a huge step up from yarn balls, the original technique I was taught.
Two: The flat bottom and shape of yarn cakes makes storage way easier than yarn balls or unwound skeins. I have heard that you should only cake your yarn if you plan to use it soon, since the winding does put some tension on the fibre, but most of the time, I do only cake before using.
Three: Yarn cakes are really pretty. I know it’s not a real reason, but I just love the way they look!

Apparently, there is an actual tool that can be used to hold the yarn, rather than a marker. They are “nostepinne” (or nostepinde / nøstepinde), but it seems a bit superfluous since a marker does the job just as well! It’s kind of cool to think how long humanity has been working with fibre, and we can manipulate so many of our every day objects to become our tools.

Until next time, happy crafting!