Hello my people,
I want to share with you a little trick I picked up from Debbie Stollar of “Stitch N’ Bitch” and “Happy Hooker” fame. (Side note, don’t Google search “Happy Hooker” without “Crochet” as part of the wording. Trust me, it’s not geared toward yarn making.) I love this tip SO MUCH I have to shout it from the roof-top! (AKA, writing a blog post I hope someone reads.)
This tip will work with any animal hair yarn. A good rule of thumb is, “Can you wet felt with this yarn? Then you can – or can’t – seamlessly join it while working with it.” I have some pictures in this post to aid with the step-by-step process:
Here we have two different color 100% wool strands. No matter the weight, if you can felt with it, this trick will work. First step is to wet about 1/4 inch of each end.
Then you overlap the two ends over each other about 1/3 of an inch.
Take the overlapped, wet ends into the palm of your hand and slowly roll it around. Think of those Play-doh snakes you made when you were younger, too slow and it would stay too thick, too fast and it would get real thin and break. You want to roll it around enough to bind the ends together, but not so much it breaks or so little it doesn’t work. It’s helpful to count to 10, check and repeat a max of two times.
As you can see, the two strands are bound or “felted” to each other. Continue using the yarn as usual. If you are a super tight knitter – cough*, cough* Susann – you want to knit looser than normal for the stitches involving the bound yarn, to make sure you don’t pull the felted ends apart. You can also wait for the ends to dry (about a minute) before using them to be extra sure of tightness.
Voilá! The yarn is incorporated into the yarnwork just as if it came from the original skein.
As easy as it is to use this trick, it’s super fun too. I feel like a magician making my projects from potion-fixed yarn! Yeah, it sounds weird, but just try it, you will agree. For my more seasoned readers, this might be a rote and boring post; however, I did find that the more plyed (twists or strands of fiber wound together to make your yarn) your yarn is, the less this trick works. You can still use this trick on 2-ply yarn, but anything more than that, it doesn’t work because the fibers are so wound to itself, simple rolling won’t get the other strand to bind. Single ply or “roving” yarn is the best for this trick.
Project Hyper and Getting Back to it,
-Stacy C
Saw this tip on Knitting Daily. it’s a great idea, but did not know that it only works best for 2-ply. THAT’s good to know. Love your blog!