Keeping yarn neat and tidy is an essential skill for crafters across the board. A lot of crafts use yarn or string in some way, so wrapping it all back up at the end is important, especially if you don’t want to deal with knots and tangles all over the place. A while ago, I wrote a post detailing various bits and bobs you can get from charity shops. It’s well worth a read, but in there, I mentioned unwinding jumpers to get yarn cheaply. But… if you unwind the yarn, it’s gonna be a mess. So, might as well learn how to tidy a ball of wool!

Besides, I saw a video a little while ago, where someone used a fork to tidy a ball of wool. I guess you can do that. But here, I’m going to show you how my mum taught me, and how her mum taught her, no extra tools needed! All you need is the yarn you want to tidy, and your hands.

If you’re new to crafting, then definitely get this skill in your toolkit right away. Or, if you know someone whose new, pass this post over to them! If you want some yarn crafts to put all that tidied ball of wool to good use, then check out my yarn crafts right here.

How to tidy a ball of yarn

Active Time: 2 minutes

Total Time: 2 minutes

Difficulty: ♥♡♡♡♡

Don't leave yarn lying around; learn how to tidy a ball of yarn right here.

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Materials

• Yarn to tidy up

Tools

• Your hands!

Instructions

1. Hold your palm flat. Tuck the end of the yarn under your thumb.
2. Begin to wrap the yarn around your palm. Do this approximately 15 times.
3. Carefully remove the loops of yarn from your hand. Tie around the middle of the loops 3 times.
4. Fold the loops over. Tie around the middle again 3 more times. Repeat this step if your loops are very long.
5. After that, begin to wrap the yarn around the little bundle, slowly changing angle as you go. Imagine you're wrapping the wool in a circle.
6. Keep going, and eventually, you'll have a tidy ball of wool!

Notes

While I've given you clear numbers here, you can change them to whatever suits the size of your palm. As always, I advocate experimenting. But, the idea is to quickly wrap your yarn into a ball, and it's not an exact science at all.