Today’s technique is how to join a new ball of yarn of the same color. When you finish with one ball of yarn, how do you start the next ball? There are lots of different options, each with it’s pros and cons.
1. Drop the current yarn and start the new yarn. In this case, you will leave a hole in the knitting that will need to be closed with the yarn ends when you weave in ends later. Make sure that you leave long enough ends for the purpose. I don’t use this technique often, mostly because there’s too much “clean-up” work to be done later.
2. Tie a knot. Some people tie a knot in the yarns and just move on. This is definitely not my favorite. You can’t always control whether or not the knot will show, and it can sometimes mess up the look of an otherwise lovely piece of knitting.
3. Knit together with both pieces of yarn for several stitches. This is great for wool and is rarely visible. You don’t need to worry much about weaving in ends in this case. However, it is not as effective with more “slippery” yarns like cotton, acrylic, or other man-made fibers. I have a sweater made of a cotton/Modal blend with an obvious join. Yet, it’s practically invisible on wool.
4. Change only at the end of a row. This is a variation of dropping the current yarn and starting the new yarn. The stitches at the beginning of the row will be a little bit loose, but it’s not hard to tighten them as needed. However, this is only practical for items that are knit flat and are relatively small.
5. Twisting ends. About five of six stitches before changing yarns, you start to twist the new yarn around the old yarn by weaving it over the working yarn for one stitch, then under the working yarn for one stitch, etc. After you change yarns, you do the same thing but twisting the old yarn around the new yarn for five or six stitches. This should make the join invisible and take care of ends.
Another time we’ll discuss how to join yarn of a different color. In the meantime, happy knitting!!
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