Singles yarns - seamless joins for a new ball

Sometimes you're making something where both sides will be visible, and you really don't want to spoil the integrity of your fabric one little bit, even with the neatest sewing in of ends ever seen.

Well, there is a way.

This works best with singles yarns. I've not widely experimented to adapt to a highly twisted yarn, but I expect there are ways and means, and if anyone has any tips, please share them in the comments section.

This is just a simple technique which only takes a few minutes and your knitting will look as if you have worked from one ball continuously all the way through.

Step 1: Work up to the point where you have approximately 5cm of yarn left. It doesn't matter if this is in the middle of a row - in fact, it's better if it is! 

Step 2: Take your new ball and lay it side by side with the last 5cm of the old ball.

Step 3: Separate the strands of both sections of yarn without breaking the fibres.

Step 4: Gently work the fibres from both balls together by holding them between your index finger and thumb and gently twist them and squish them together, working in the same direction as the natural twist of the yarn. Even with a singles yarn, the fibres will tend to slant in one direction, so try and identify this before your start working the fibres together.

Step 5: Continue in this way until the yarns are integrated and the join is pretty much invisible to the naked eye. Test the join by tugging GENTLY - not too much as a singles yarn breaks easily anyway! A little bit of instability is ok, as when the yarn is worked, the knots tied by the stitches will firm up the join.

Step 6: Continue with your pattern and enjoy the seamless join!

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