Coned yarns aren’t just for weaving! Yarns wound onto a cone are wonderful to knit and crochet with. They generally come in fairly large quantities, which means fewer joins and weaving in ends. The only tricky part can be getting the yarn off the cone easily while you’re working with it. You could put the cone on the floor, but your seat may not be high enough to be effective. A great solution is to run the yarn over a tall object so it glides off the cone easily.

Here, I used a tall computer monitor, but a desk lamp would work really well too. If you haven’t worked with coned yarns before, you can try the Valley Yarns 496 Greenway Shawl knit in Valley Yarns 2/10 Merino Tencel (Colrain Lace) and Valley Yarns 456 Sumac Berry Shawl crocheted in Valley Yarns 2/14 Alpaca Silk.

Hand-dyed yarns can vary quite a bit in shade, even within the same colorway.  If you knit through one skein completely, then another, you’ll see a distinctive line in your project where the two skeins meet. This isn’t a problem if you’re making a one skein project, but what if you want to make a sweater, a shawl or something else using multiple skeins of hand dyed yarn? Try alternating your skeins! If knitting or crocheting flat, work two rows from one skein, then work two rows from another and so on. If working in the round, switch skeins at the start of each round. This will blend the color changes together to transition more smoothly and will give you a much cleaner look.

This same technique can be used when using commercially dyed yarns from different dye lots.

Using a kitchen food scale is the easiest way to split a ball of yarn exactly in half.

1. Weigh the full ball and write that number down so you don’t forget!
2. Wind off your yarn until the scale reads half the original weight.
3. Cut the yarn and you’ll have two equal balls to work from.

Royal Ball Winder available at yarn.com

This is perfect for using a double-strand for a bulky project or for making sure you have enough yarn for two equally-sized socks.

What if you don’t have a kitchen scale? How have you been able to divide a ball of yarn in half?

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