Yarn styling tutorial
I've often been asked, "How do you get your yarn to sit up and look pretty when you take its picture?" The answer is cash. Lots and lots of cash.

Taking yarn pictures

This tutorial isn't about lighting or cameras. But I can give you a few tips for coaxing your hank into a nifty little picture.

Start by putting your hands inside the hank like so: (With deepest apologies to my son, who will undoubtedly be embarrassed by this one day.)

Begin twisting the hank by rotating on wrist and keeping the other stationary.

Lay your twisted hank on the photography surface.

Twist the yarn around on itself at the midpoint to create a swirl.


Tuck one of the ends behind the swirl.

And now the other end.

Change the angle of your camera and the hank of yarn to find something that looks appealing to you. This doesn't really work for me.

This is a little better, but still not quite right.

This would be my choice. It looks more visually balanced and appealing.

Here's one other method, which involves tying the hank into a sort of knot...

... and the fussing with it to find the right angle, the right degree of smoothness, and color balance. You have to be careful not to photograph only a few colors of the yarn -- try to get them all in.

Other tips:

• Please don't put your yarn on the floor to take its picture. Even a clean floor. Really, now. The yarn deserves better. I feel the same way about the deck or the patio or the veranda or the gravel or the grass or the what have you. I don't want yarn that has touched dirt. Even clean dirt.
  
• Crop the pictures close around the yarn. It makes the focus of the picture that yarn itself, and the viewer isn't distracted by unnecessary background items.
• Take lots of pictures. Better to have too many to choose from than end the session with no workable pictures.