One aspect of 'knitting being far beyond the sum of its parts' is that which does get talked about when people come together and knit. All levels of life get discussed. On all levels.
Knitting, of course, is one of these topics; who and where and what and why and how are covered. I have learned so much!
But the following I have never heard mentioned and when I discovered a nifty solution on my own, I thought to fill the gap.
The problem: How to turn a ball of yarn which contains two strands of yarn back into a ball with only one strand of yarn. I had wound two balls of yarn into a double stranded one to make a sturdy string bag for books and groceries and then discovered I needed single strands again to complete a pair of socks. I frogged the just-started string bag.
The solution: Avoid the mess that happens (experience speaking) when you try to hold the double-standed ball on your lap and separate it into two piles of yarn by pulling and piling. Hah! What I did was walk through the house unwinding the ball with the double yarn so that I had a long trail. When I got to the end I wrapped one yarn around a finger on my hand and rolled it up a bit, then did the same on another finger with the other yarn. Then walked the trail of yarn through the house doing this same thing; bit on one finger, bit on the other. It worked! I then rolled the two balls into one single stranded ball.
Next time I decide to double strand for some reason I am going to talk myself into winding a centre-pull ball and knitting from the outside and inside! That we do talk about at knitting.