At 3 Kittens we will always ask our yarn customers if they would like their hanks/skeins of yarn wound into balls/cakes when they purchase their yarn. It is one of the services we provide happily to our customers.

But, did you know that winding a hank of yarn before it’s ready to be used can cause issues? Here are some of the cons to winding a hank too early:

• Winding a hank into a tight ball/cake (which unfortunately is how our big wooden swift tends to create them) means that your yarn fibers might get stretched a bit from how they are in the relaxed hank. When you have an elastic fiber (meaning that a yarn when stretched will bounce back when released – wool is highly elastic, while cotton is inelastic), you might stretch the yarn so much that it won’t return to its original state.
• Winding yarn that is ‘slinky’ or slippery might allow the yarn to get tangled if not used right away. The yarn is much less likely to tangle while it is in the hank!
• Wound balls/cakes are less compact-able than hanks. Have you ever tried to squish a ball/cake down? It’s pretty impossible, particularly if the cake is wound tightly. If you’re packing your yarn up (either in a suitcase or a storage box), hanks are more malleable and easier to fit into odd spaces.

Of course, if you don’t have your own ball winder and swift and you live far away from 3 Kittens, it might be worth it to go ahead and wind all of your hanks at the time of purchase. However, if you live nearby or come to the store frequently, you should think about only having us wind your hank(s) when you’re ready to use them. We are happy to wind yarn purchased at 3 Kittens any time! And if you purchase yarn elsewhere and would like us to wind it, we are happy to do that as well for just $1/hank.