This tip is not necessarily an unknown one, but on the off-chance that someone hasn’t thought about it, or thought about how cheaply it can be created, I thought I’d put something together in order to share.

Step 01: Buy or recycle plastic storage containers.

This 2-quart storage container was bought for $1 at a local Dollar Tree. I bought a 3-quart one as well for larger skeins. The 2-quart could easily hold small to medium sized balls of yarn, large if they’re wound into center-pull cakes/balls. You’ll want it to be plastic so that it’s light, and so that the lid is easily drilled into. Which brings us to…

Step 02: Buy dremel-like tool or drill (try eBay, local garage/yard sales)

The above dremel-like tool was bought off of eBay with about 40 bits and pieces for around $10 USD. More than affordable as we’ve been using it for a number of things. Use the tool with one of the drill-bits (use an appropriate size to fit whatever yarn you use most; or use different sized bits for a range of hole sizes if you want a large range of containers) to drill a hole into the top of the plastic lid.

Step 03: File and Clean Up Drilled Space

I drilled in the very center and then filed any pieces of plastic that were sticking out. Don’t want any snags, right? The hole for this canister is fairly small. Large enough to let DK or smaller to slip through. The larger canister I bought will be for WW and larger.

Step 04: Pop in Yarn and Voila!

And that’s all she wrote! Well, and that since these are stackable, I foresee these being an affordable solution for containing and arranging works-in-progress.

Other containers to be used that you might have lying around:

• Empty Coffee Canisters
• Empty Slim Jim Canisters
  (I tend to buy the mild slim jims where there are 25 in a canister)
• Emptied and Cleaned plastic mayonnaise or peanut butter jars
• Anything else that is clean, empty and drill-able