Today we focus on weaving in ends. While many yarn-crafters find this to be drudgery, I have come to think of it simply as another aspect of knitting.

Philosophy – Weaving In Ends

As someone who loves knitting and crochet, I find no aspect of it to be unpleasant.  For instance,  you’ll never hear me say, “I hate casting on.”  So it’s bewildering when someone says “I hate weaving in ends.”

For me, weaving in ends is simply another part of the skill of knitting. A skill I enjoy.

Tools, Tips and Techniques – Weaving In Ends

Like many tools of yarn-craft, I have accumulated many different tools for weaving in ends.  I also use a few different methods for weaving in ends depending on the garment I’m finish, the yarn I used and the intended recipient.

Tools

You really only need a needle with an eye large enough to thread the thickness of your yarn and scissors to trim your yarn ends. But even yarn needles come in many different forms.

Above you’ll see:

• Scissors that can trim yarn with close precision
• Plastic needle holder (Chibi)
• Susan Bates blunt yarn needles
• Loose blunt and sharp yarn needles
• Chinese imported blunt yarn needles
• Steel and plastic yarn needles in a wood/brass needle case
• (shown separately )Longer Susan Bates darning needle

I highly recommend that you accumulate a lot of different weaving-in tools and needle cases.  Most of my project bags have a needle case with different types of needles. It is recommended you have at least one blunt yarn needle, one sharp yarn needle and a pair of scissors. If you can find the longer darning needles by Susan Bates, it will be a very useful tool as well.

Tips and Techniques

There are four basic ways I weave in ends:

• To secure the yarn end so it doesn’t unravel – where it doesn’t matter if it shows on the non-public side of the fabric (like inside a pullover sweater)
• Weaving the ends of the yarn into a hem or crochet edging where the yarn-end will be totally covered by the fabric stitches
• To secure the yarn end and hide it as completely as possible – as for with a scarf
• Securing the yarn end as tightly as possible and hiding it as completely as possible – as for with a baby blanket

For the first two methods, I use a blunt yarn needle (preferably the longer Susan Bates needle so I can weave longer sections at a time). I simply weave about 3 inches of the yarn end into the back of the fabric or inside other stitches so the end doesn’t show up and doesn’t unravel.

For the second two methods, I use a sharp yarn needle and I also unwind the plies of the yarn-end and weave in each ply separately and into different places.  I use the sharp needle so I can weave the yarn-end into the split yarn of the fabric.  It helps to both secure and hide the yarn when I split the yarn that makes up the fabric.  I unwind the plies of the yarn-end so that the yarn is secured in multiple places, so if one comes loose, the others will still keep the fabric intact.  It is also easier to hide thinner plies of yarn so it doesn’t show. The video below shows this technique.

Knitting Skills Proficiency Tutorials

The video above is also the first tutorial that will be in a series of tutorials that will help folks who took the Knitting Skills Proficiency Assessment and want to find resources to learn areas where they have a skill-gap or want to improve existing skills.

Current Knitting

Despite having three projects in progress (actually four…I didn’t show one in the last blog entry), I have focused on only the most urgent.

I’m about halfway through the Chevron Striped Scarf that I will be donating to a New Year’s Even auction at Easton Mountain.