Yarn Joins

Good Morning!

JT and I are on the porch on this beautiful sunny day, he mowing and me writing.  I have recently found out that I will be a Great Aunt, and it looks like he/she will be a winter baby.  What a great time to knit warm baby clothes!

When I first started out with my needles and yarn, the one thing that always caused me some discomfort was joining a new ball.  The information that I had at the time was to tie the ends together and keep on knitting.  That did do the job of joining the ends, but almost certainly, that ugly knot would migrate to the front of my work no matter how many times I would pull it to the back and anchor the ends.

Since then I have learned many more techniques, but in some cases it depends on the project, the type of yarn you are using and whether you are at the end/beginning of a row or in the middle somewhere. The type of join also depends on your dye lot as well.  If it is the same, no problem.  If it is different, then there is a slight adjustment to make.  I will explain this one a little farther on.

My preferred method in flat knitting is to join at the edge where the ends can easily be woven in totally unnoticed.  When you are getting close to the end of the ball, check to see if you have at least three times the width of your knitting to get you back across to the other edge. If not, stop now and join in the new ball.

Adding in a new ball in the middle or in the case of circular knitting now depends on the yarn you are using.  If you are using an acrylic or something similar to cabled or ribbon, you can put the ends together thus,<-------- = end of the first ball and ---------> = end of the new ball.  Hold them parallel and knit a couple of stitches with the doubled yarn and then drop the yarn tail of the old ball and begin knitting with the new ball and in the case of a plied yarn use the Russian Technique below. 

If you are working with 100% wool, fulling the ends together works well.  Hold the ends as in the illustration above and wet the yarn.  When I have been without a water bottle or a sink, have used, pardon the expression, spit.  You are going to wash and block your piece when done, so this doesn't pose a problem.  Briskly rub your hands together and the yarn will begin to full together....new yarn join.

If you are using something that won't felt as in a super wash, I like the Russian Join.  Break the end of the old yarn, do not cut.  Thread a tapestry needle and run the tail up through the center  of the strand within the plys for about two inches.  Leave a small loop at the end.  Then with a broken tail on the new ball thread the tapestry needle and pull through the loop at the end of the old ball and weave the new tail up through the plys of the new ball.  This is really easy to do and not easily noticed.

Now for bulky wools.  I like to taper the ends of the old and new for about 2 inches or so.  Then holding the strands parallel as above and full them together.  It is important to place this join in an inconspicuous spot just due to its sheer bulk.

In the case of working with two different dye lots, you will use one of the methods above, but leave enough of the old ball to knit several rows.  You will want to alternate the old and new dye lot thereby tricking the eye to not see a tell tale sign of color variance.  Work this method for a few inches or so knitting a couple of rows of each dye lot before switching to the other.

Now, change up those yarn balls fearlessly!  Have a great day!

Knitting Tip

Good Morning!

I hope you all had a great weekend, I know I did.  I took a class at yarnandteashop.com which was fantastic.  I haven't taken a class for quite awhile, but I must say, if you haven't, find one and spend a great couple of hours.

What I find is that I may not really need the class for the learning per se, but it is all the "unadvertised" wonderful things that you learn that you can't put a price tag  on.  And then, there is the meeting of new friends who share your passion and usually on more than one level. 

What I mean by that is, there are all levels of knitters, even if the class is for, say, intermediate to advanced.  All of us have knowledge of our craft that is freely shared.  How awesome is that!  I used to work in the food industry, and one thing I found out is that information is not always enthusiastically shared.

Here is one tip that I learned and want to pass along.  Copy and paste this or take notes.  It is so simple I don't know why I haven't heard of it before.  Let me give you just a little background.  The project was a French Beret knit in fingering weight handspun, hand dyed yarn, which the instructor, Mariepaule, prepared for us (check out cheltenhamcottage on Etsy).  If you have ever cast on firmly using fingering weight yarn, getting the cast on over the join on a circular needle can be a major headache.

Cast your stitches on a double point needle the same size.  Then begin the first round transferring stitches to your circular needle. Make sure there are no twists in your knitting and join as usual.  I couldn't believe what a pleasure this was instead of struggling. 

Now you can pull out all your fingering weight projects, cast on and get knitting!.