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In this blog post, I’m going to show you how I used a sunscreen bottle to wind a beautiful center-pull ball of yarn!

When you purchase yarn that comes in a hank, you’ll need to wind it before using. You can usually wind your yarn at your local friendly yarn store when you purchase it… however, if you want to wind your yarn into a ball at home (maybe because it’s midnight and you’re itching to start a new project), you’ll have to come up with something else.

Some folks own a their own ball winders… but, the nice ball winders can be pricey, and the cheap ones can be unreliable. I used to wind my yarn on my hands… but you either wind up with a ball (pretty, but not center-pull), or you wind a center-pull ball on your hands, which makes your fingers feel all squished. (Read here for why you may want to use a center pull ball.) I’d heard about using a Nostepinne for winding balls… and not being one to splurge on new tools, I decided to give it a try, but using a sunscreen bottle.

A Nostepinne is (usually) a wooden stick used to wind beautiful balls of yarn. One end of the Nostepinne is tapered, so that the ball easily slides off. Since a ‘real’ Nostepinne doesn’t have too many intricate details, I found a suitable replacement in my medicine cabinet… a bottle of sunscreen! I found this set of instructions for using a Nostepinne.

I grabbed my sunscreen, and set to work. I used the ‘football-shaped’ method of winding yarn, simply because it was quick and easy. As I wound more balls, the process got to be quite quick. Below, you’ll see a photo of the yarn still on the bottle.

Then, I pulled the ball off of the bottle, and it looks lovely! It sits nicely (doesn’t roll around) and is center-pull. Yay!

So, you don’t need to buy a ‘real Nostepinne’ to get great results. Find something in your cabinet and give it a try!

Here are handy links to all the posts about yarn. . .

• How to Join Yarn with No Knot
• 3 Ways to Join Yarn without Tying a Knot
• What to Do If There’s a Knot in Your Yarn
• How to Work with Eyelash Yarn
• How Much Yarn Do I Need?
• How to Calculate Yarn Weight from Length
• How to Make a Magic Ball
• How to Use a Ball Winder
• Using a Nostepinne Replacement to Make a Center-Pull Yarn Ball
• How to Make Yarn from Fabric Strips
• Dye Yarn with Wilton Icing Dye

Return to the main table of contents for Let’s Learn to Crochet Amigurumi.

Move on to the lessons for the basic crochet stitches.

Happy stitching!