How to Wind Scrap Yarn Into Cakes

As a crocheter & yarn enthusiast {yeah that’s a thing!} I tend to accumulate lots of yarn ends & leftovers from projects. A great way to utilize these is to join them all together & make your own custom yarn! In this post I’ll show you how to wind scrap yarn into cakes & how to wind two yarns at the same time. Then everything will be ready when it’s time for your next scrappy yarn project.

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Yarn Scraps & A Ball Winder

You can wind yarn by hand, but I really like my ball winder. Although this is a KnitPicks ball winder, I purchased this from Amazon for about $20.

This breaks down into 3 pieces & fits right back into the box for easy storage. I also really like the color! This snaps together very quickly & fits right on the side of my work table.

I had a bag full of things that needed winding, so I laid it all out on the table to sort.

Before I start winding away, I like to divide things into similar groups. I try to keep similar yarn weights together, but I don’t worry too much about the fiber type. Most of these are acrylic, with just a few wools & cottons.

I’ve got a pile with Halloween colors, a fall bulky pile, & a fall worsted weight pile. The yarn in the upper left came like that, but it needs to be wound up!

Winding & Joining

To start off the winding, you just hook the end of the yarn in one of the slots. This leaves an end for center pull, if you prefer that. There’s also a swirly wire to help with tension on the side.

I usually hold the yarn between the yarn ball & tension wire to keep it from pulling too much. Then you just turn the handle & wind away!

When it’s time to add new yarn, I like to use the “magic knot” method. There are several ways to join yarn ends, but I like this one the best.

Since I had more of some yarn that others, I used a very “sophisticated method” to meter it out. I alternated the colors with the solid & counted more pulls to the right for the larger skeins. That’s the pile to the right in the picture below.

Another part of this sophisticated system was my yarn ball holder I made out of a plastic bag. I’m a genius! : D

Storing

Once the yarn is all wound up into a yummy cake, there are several ways to store & label it, if needed. Some people let the cake just collapse on itself, but I want to be able to use these on my yarn butler. The first ones I wound up, I either tied a string around one side or looped the label through & stapled it.

These cakes are a little bigger & a rolled up index card stuck through the center worked much better. Then I wound up this behemoth of a cake…

An index card was definitely not going to work for this! I had an empty paper towel tube hanging around that worked just fine.

I’ve tried to crochet things with this yarn several times, but it really doesn’t work well for clothing or a blanket. Here’s a crocheted section of it…

That sparkly white bit is like some sort of plastic-like yarn. I think I’m just going to make a wall hanging with it because I do love it! It’s Red Heart Boutique Changes & it’s been discontinued. I did find some on Amazon it different color ways, if you want to pay over $15 a skein for it!

Scrappy Yarn Cakes

Back to the scrappy yarn cakes! This is what my Halloween yarn cake looks like…

I did have some purple & a little burgundy left over. The burgundy went in with my worsted weight fall pile & I wound up the purple to use with the Halloween cake.

Here’s my chunky fall pile all connected & ready to wind…

This yarn was a little slippery when the cake got bigger & I had to hold the yarn down to get all the way to the end.

There was some cream and grey leftover from this one…

I decided to cake up all my leftover chunky skeins, which were mostly Homespun. I’m thinking about this layout for a corner to corner blanket, with the scrappy yarn cake in the middle. What do y’all think?

By the way, Lion Brand now has Homespun Cakes! They have the same amount of yarn, but there are 19 colorways that are completely different than the skeins. I may or may not have one coming to try out…. ; P

This is my pile of fall worsted weight before spinning it all up…

I really love how the colors came together for this one!

This may be my favorite one so far!

I realized I had more worsted scraps in a bin on my shelf. I decided to just start from brown & go through to grey on this one. There’s already some knots in it because this is from me frogging a corner to corner panel.

I wound up having to do two cakes for these & move the two larger black balls with my Halloween cake. The ones on the far right are the cakes from the above yarn.

What about all the little, little bits? Well, I’m keeping them too to make into stuffing, just like I saw in this video!

I just need to find a yarn carder that’s not so expensive! Maybe I’ll find one on my next thrifting adventure. : D

Winding Two Yarns

I’m planning on making a coat out of the two yarns below. I’ll be holding the two yarns together to do this, so it makes since to wind them up into a cake to make it easier to crochet with.

The one on the right is Lion Brand Homeland in Pinnacles & the one on the left is LB Collection Silk Mohair in Sunset.

I put both of them in my fancy holder & set it up to wind away. Since the acrylic is so much heavier, I had to pull out a pile of it then wind it. Be sure to turn the pile over before you start winding & you’ll have less tangles!

The lighter yarn wanted to bunch up, so I really had to watch it & feel for it as it went through my hand. I was a little surprised when the acrylic ran out first, especially since it had about 30 more yards than the silk mohair!

Okay, this is my favorite cake now! It’s so soft & squishy & those colors are just stunning!

Just look at that halo!

I shared this picture on Instagram when I was test swatching these for my coat. This is before I wound it all up.

Someone had a question about how that actually works – crocheting two yarns together. So, I decided to do a YouTube tutorial on it, which you can check out below ~>

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