Hank, Skein, Cake, Ball

I know some people use hank and skein interchangeably, but the above is what I learned the different terms to mean.

If you buy yarn in a hank, you'll want to wind it up before working with it, otherwise you may end up with a huge tangled mess that will take hours and hours and hours to untangle - ask me how I know!

A swift and ball winder are useful, although not necessary.  If you wind the yarn with a winder, you get a cake; if you use your hands, you'll get a ball.

In place of a swift, you can drape the hank over the back of a chair, your knees, your feet, or talk someone into holding it for you on their hands.

You can wind a center pull ball with a toilet paper tube or paper towel tube cut in half, here is a video.

Finding the end of your yarn

Just thought I'd share this tip, incase you have issues finding the beginning of your yarn like I do.  Sometimes this works like magic, but other times I still wind up having to pull out half of the inside of the skein and end up with a huge pile of yarn barf!   I've had success on larger skeins as well as smaller ones.  Sometimes the yarn just does not want to cooperate though.

If there is a false tail sticking out (you know what I mean, the one that you are happy to see because you think it is the tail you need to start knitting, but when you pull on it, it won't budge), just pull it out and tuck it into the ball band.  Then, put your index fingers into each end of the skein and twist them.  If you are lucky, the beginning tail of your yarn will find your finger and easily pull out of the center of the skein.  And because I had a few spare minutes, I made a video  :0)