Finishing Basics: Weaving in Ends

Hi guys, Mary Beth Temple here on behalf of The Knitting Circle. I'm here today to talk to you about weaving in ends. Now I have always felt that weaving in ends is more of an art than a science, but there are things that if you know them, will make your weaving in ends slightly less painful of a process. So let's look at some ways to weave in ends properly. I'm gonna work in a contrasting color of yarn because I want you to be able to see what I'm doing. I just brought it up from the right side of the work to pretend that it's this little tail hanging out right here. I'm using a bent tip needle. You could also use a straight needle. Whatever makes you happy and whatever you have access to. So if you look at each row of stitches, you have an upper loop and you have a lower loop. So to get started, we're going to pick an upper loop. I like to go pretty close to the edge. I don't want a big float in the back. And then instead of going straight up, I'm going to angle to the left and go under that lower loop in the row above. And I'm going to pull that up. Now, you don't want to pull super tight when you're weaving in ends, because on the one hand you don't want it to pull out. But on the other hand, you don't want it to mess up the gauge of your work when it is blocked or washed or whatever you need to do with it, worn, or used. You want to make sure that there is enough flexibility, elasticity, if you will, in the end being woven in, that it doesn't foul up your gauge on the front side. So now with my needle tip, I'm going to follow this upper loop, go through the lower loop, and see the upper loop right under him? Right there. So now I'm started. Once I have my work started, it's a lot easier to keep going. So I'm going to follow that lower loop, come under that upper loop, and I'm going to go right back to the area where I was. See how I came down under that lower loop? Now I'm gonna go up under that lower loop. It's kind of like duplicate stitch. And you want to keep that yarn moving on the diagonal once again, so it's not as obvious from the front. Follow the upper loop around, go under the lower loop and then go under the upper loop that you just worked in. Follow that lower loop around, go under the upper loop, and go under the lower loop that you worked in before. So with each strand, with each stitch that you're making you're sort of picking up half of a stitch. Like I said, once you get those first two stitches in it's super easy to see what you're doing. Now I'm going to town here. I'm doing a lot of stitches 'cause I want you to be able to see what I'm doing. But just a few is fine. And I like to finish with my tail facing the edge. 'Cause again, probably that's gonna be in a seam where there's gonna be a border there or I'm going to pick up and do some stuff. So I'm going to give this a little tug again to make sure that it's not pulling too tight. You don't want it super sloppy loose 'cause you don't want it to catch on anything but you do want to make sure it has the same amount of elasticity as your knit stitches. And then let's turn this over and look at the right side. And you can hardly see it. You can see it right there a little bit. I think I probably pulled that a little bit too tight, but generally speaking, you don't get these big columns of yarn that you can see from the right side of the work. And of course, if I was weaving in the correct color of tail, you wouldn't see that at all. Which is another good point to make. If I'm doing stripes, et cetera, you want to try and weave in the end behind the knit stitches of the same color. I don't want to weave in white yarn behind a black background or vice versa unless I absolutely have to. But if I'm doing stripes, again, just in the interest of very persnickety details, you want to weave the tail in behind the knit stitches of the same color. You'll find as you finish more and more projects across the course of your knitting life, you will get into a rhythm of weaving in ends in the way that makes the most sense for you. But now you have a couple of tips and tricks to add to your little bag of tricks to make finishing your project that much less painful. I'm Mary Beth Temple. This is The Knitting Circle. Have fun poking around and seeing what else we have to offer. I'll see you again real soon.