toilet paper rolls

When using a ball of yarn, there are generally two choices - use the yarn from the outside of the ball, so it unwinds from outside-in, or use the yarn from the center of the ball, so it unwinds from inside-out.

When you start from the outside, you have to figure out a way to keep the ball unrolling smoothly and not bounce/roll around all over the place. I'm sure there are other disadvantages as well, since I'm pretty sure at some point that I was told this is the "wrong" way to do it. However, it works, mostly.

Cotton yarn with colored spots

When you start from the inside, first you have to find the inside end of the yarn (assuming you've got a ball of yarn that is designed to be a center-pull ball). Sometimes, you get little tangles as you try to extract the yarn. The other problem is that as one uses up the yarn, the ball gets floppy and gets tangly.

Therefore, I wanted to try to figure out a way to not end up with a tangly, bouncy, floppy ball of yarn. I'd seen reference to rolling yarn on a toilet paper roll (and then pulling the yarn off the roll to make a center-pull ball), and I think I saw something on some website somewhere about putting the roll on a toilet paper dispenser.

This was a purple sock.
It will be a purple sock again.

So I got me a paper towel holder, and some empty toilet paper rolls, and attempted to make some rolls. The rolls were fairly successful, but I've run into some snags involving the unrolling of the balls. It's somewhat successful, though... maybe I'll get me one of those free-standing toilet paper roll holders, but we shall see.

I think the moral of the story is that I have yet to figure out the perfect way of unrolling yarn.

In other news, the purple sock was just a little too small (after having gotten around the corner of the heel) and after a bunch of debating, I ended up ripping it all out, held the kinky yarn over some steam for a few moments, and rolled it up onto another toilet paper roll. I'm going to try it again with bigger needles. Sigh. It's a very cool pattern and I will be sad if I can't figure out a way to get it to fit.