I'm thinking of buying a yarn bowl 🤔

There are some pretty ones. I just use a big plastic bottle with the top and bottom cut off. Not that I'm cheap or anything 😁 Assuming they are used for feeding wool.

If a yarn bowl will give you pleasure then it is worth buying, useful or not. Go on, treat yourself.

If it is ceramic or wood make sure it is smooth where the yarn runs. I saw one at a craft fair recently and it was very nice but rough and would have shredded the yarn.

DD has one and has found it useful. I think hers is ceramic. I have been known to use a jug (also pretty) to similar purpose.

I was given a beautiful wooden one last Christmas. I love it.
I have made a few ceramic ones but they are not as smooth (I'm a potter) and tricky to make.
This one says it's from Hobbycraft, Christchurch, Dorset.

Here it is. It keeps the wool from getting tangled

I have a wooden one. I love it, but don't use it a lot, to be honest. It's a lovely think in its own right though, so it has a place on the coffee table.

Thank you all for your help.

Thank you, Ilovecheese. I think you're right. I should treat myself. Maybe I'll put it on my Christmas list and someone else can treat me 😄.

Grammaretto I love your yarn bowl. It's very pretty 🤩

I have a ceramic one, from Flying Tiger, I think. It’s nice and smooth. I only used it for yarn that’s wound like a cotton reel, not the standard yarns, iykwim.

Mine is a beautiful ceramic one that one of my sons bought me for Mothers' Day some years ago. He thought of it all by himself! I do occasionally use it, but otherwise like Doodledog's it's a lovely ornament.

Mine is a ceramic one, shaped like a jam jar but bigger. It has a slot in the lid for the yarn to come through.
I do use it and found it very handy when a friend came with her puppy as he couldn't chase the wool!

They are definitely an improvement on the shopping bag I currently use!

I made a mistake and bought one of these yarn holders. I should have bought a yarn bowl, it would have been much better.

The yarn butlers like the one in your photo are meant for caked yarn, whereas the bowls are for balls. That’s why I don’t use my bowl a lot. I buy skeined or coned yarn and wind it into cakes.

DH made my wooden one on his lathe, it's beautiful and very useful.

DD and I saw some in a new shop that has opened in our city centre. I think I might have one in my Christmas stocking (pretty please!)! My mother used to have a plastic one like a beehive and the yard came out of a hole in the top. I wish I’d kept it.

I have had two yarn bowls, waste of money and I got rid of them. I now use a small pretty curver knit effect basket. Big enough to drop my knitting into it. If I am doing colourwork then I hang some device that looks like a muzzle from each corner of my trolley, which is next to my chair

Yarn bowls are pretty but, for me, useless

I bought my friend a small knitting bag for her birthday. She knits socks and baby items so it seemed a good idea for small projects. You pop your wool inside and on one end in a reinforced hole which you pass the yarn through to keep your yarn clean. She loves it.

Doodledog

The yarn butlers like the one in your photo are meant for caked yarn, whereas the bowls are for balls. That’s why I don’t use my bowl a lot. I buy skeined or coned yarn and wind it into cakes.

Thank you for pointing out the difference between yarn butlers and bowls. I wasn't aware that the yarn is wound differently for each. I wind my yarn into cakes, so now wonder if a yarn bowl is suitable. They are so pretty though, I might start winding them into balls just so as I can use one 🤣🤣

Do you ever buy balled yarn? If so, you could do what I do and keep the yarn bowl as an ornament and use it on the rare occasions you are working with balls.

During the night it occurred to me that there needs to be enough room in the bowl for the yarn to move around a bit so it can unwind. If you use a chunky yarn you will need a bigger bowl. Just something to bear in mind...!

Doodledog,
I do have the odd ball of yarn floating around in my stash that I could use 😁👍

Fairycakes

*Doodledog*,
I do have the odd ball of yarn floating around in my stash that I could use 😁👍

Excellent! You can rely on me to enable knitting-related purchases

i glanced at the title and thought someone was trying to buy a barn owl,
and i wondered about the legal implications.
life becomes more baffling . . .