How to join two yarn balls: the felted join
When a knitting or crochet project requires more yarn than there is in one single ball (as usually happens with hand-knitted sweaters), you will have to add a new ball to your work, possibly joining it to the previous ball, so that the work can continue seamlessly.
There’s a way to join two balls of wool yarn without any knots: this method uses the principles of felting, a process through which wool fibers can very securely lock into each other due to their “scaled” cuticle structure and thanks to the combined action of humidity, heat and rubbing. It is very easy to felt two wool yarn tails: you will only need some water, a needle and you hands!
Please note: this method works best with single-ply or less twisted wool yarns. We don’t recommend trying with cotton yarn (which won’t felt) or with wool yarns that have multiple plies and twists, since the texture you will obtain will be very different from the one of the yarn, making the joining visible and untidy.
Take your two balls to be joined and watch the video tutorial or continue reading for the step-by-step instructions!
FOR THIS TUTORIAL, YOU MIGHT NEED
Tutorial: join two yarn balls with the felted join
Get ready with the tails of the two yarn balls to be joined.
Take one of the two ends and start splitting the fibers into little groups with your hands.
Continue splitting the groups of fibers in half. You should have about 6/8 groups.
Repeat on the other end.
Take the two ends and combine them by laying the fibers on top of each other.
Continue flattening and combing the fibers.
The fibers should be fairly blended together.
Let some water drop on the joining spot. The less drops the better: keep the fibers mostly dry.
With a needle, try to flatten any fly-away fiber to make the joining smoother.
Take the joined yarn between your hands and gently rub it for a couple of seconds.
You’ve joined the two ends!
With this technique, you can join the ends of two yarn balls securely and seamlessly. If you are knitting or crocheting, there won’t be any ends to weave in from adding new balls of yarn.
Let us know in the comment section if you had ever tried the felted join method!
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