Yeah. Sometimes you yank out the ENTIRE durn center. Then it's smooth.

No, there's no secret, yarn companies just like to torment us.

~ Kit

When you buy the yarn, look for skeins where the cut end is visible. That's the only solution I have to the problem.

Kit, I did this on a couple of skeins and it was about half the skein, so I guess it is half-a-dozen of one and 6 of another for which way i get the yarn out!

Sheilajoyce...If I ever get to a store, I will remember this! Right now I am working Mon thru Sat, 10-12 hours per day. Luckily, my daughter has been picking up supplies and groceries for us. So anyway, i have been buying yarn on-line from Joann's.

Thanks for responding!

I saw a tip recently where you put the skein into a plastic sandwich bag with the corner snipped off (like a budget pastry bag). Thread the outside strand through the hole in the bag and use that to knit with.

I haven't tried it yet (I was already mid-skein on my projects) but it seems like it would take care of the (impossible to find) center strand thing as well as the (roll off the couch, under the coffee table only to be picked up by the dog and dragged around the room) outside strand thing.

Here is a link that might be useful: craftfetish blog

I just avoid the problems of trying to find the end in the center and sometimes getting tangles by starting with the outside end. I know that folks here like to pull from the center so the skein doesn't roll aound but most elsewhere in the world people start from the outside.