Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Cakes versus Balls

I wonder if this classifies as an age-old question that knitters might have? Which is better? Cakes or Balls? Honestly, I'm a big fan of cakes, myself. I can make two-things-at once (like socks) with a large enough cake, plus there's no rolling balls of yarn to wrangle with a bowl or whatnought. AND, winding a cake with a ball winder + swift is a lot faster than making a ball with a swift & hand-winding said ball.

However, I do like my yarn balls as well for certain types of yarn. There are some yarns, I have found, that like to grip itself, so when you pull from the center of the cake, you end up with a snarled blob of yarn that's managed to wrap itself around and you have to sit there and unpick that snarled mess out of its tangled state.

Also, as I've started spinning, some of my more energetic handspun is much happier with a bit more tension. Those curly-qs would really wreck havoc by looping around each other in the middle of the cake.

So, for my Japanese Maple, I rolled them up into yarn balls. I popped in an anime CD and spent about 30 minutes just winding 3 skeins into balls.

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