Hand-knitting socks/hose

[Tobus]

My grandfather would put the skein over a chairback and wind it off into balls

That's exactly how I do it. It's actually kind of fun! I learned the hard way that twisted hanks of yarn have to be carefully looped over something, unwound, and rewound. I start wrapping the yarn around my thumb, twisting the ball every 8-10 wraps, and end up with a nice ball to knit from. I take that opportunity to weigh it so that, for instance, I can split a 100g hank into two equal 50g balls for making socks.

When I knit from the ball, I put the ball into a small glass bowl and knit from the outside of the ball. So as I pull the yarn, the ball just turns in the bowl. My bulldogges always want to grab it when it turns!