Crafting is a labor of love. We spend lots of time choosing the perfect pattern and then knitting, crocheting or even weaving a project. Once we’ve finished crafting, all that’s left is the “finishing work” which includes weaving in ends and blocking. Some crafters dread weaving in ends, but today we’ll give you our top tips and tricks for weaving in ends and putting the perfect finish on all your projects!
To weave in ends, you will need a wool needle (sometimes called a yarn or tapestry needle) of appropriate size for your yarn, and a pair of sharp scissors. Good lighting helps, too!
To weave in ends, you will need a wool needle (sometimes called a yarn or tapestry needle) of appropriate size for your yarn, and a pair of sharp scissors. Good lighting helps, too!
For the purposes of today’s tutorial, we’re using a contrasting color of yarn so you can follow the steps easily—obviously, you’ll be using the same yarn as in your project so your finishes will blend into your piece. In general, we like to weave our ends in before blocking, but we wait to trim the ends until after the piece is blocked. This allows you to do your finishing work as you finish your crafting, but also allows the fabric to stretch and adjust during blocking. If you trim your ends before you block, be sure that you have woven in your ends through enough stitches, and allowed enough give that your ends won’t pull out when the garment is stretched.
Knitting: Garter Stitch Finishes
To weave in ends in a garter stitch project, use the following steps.
Step 1: Thread your needle with your tail. On the wrong side of your work, insert the needle up through the first stitch. Pull yarn through so the stitch is snug, but not too tight, allowing for some stretch.
Step 2: Now you will follow the loop on top of the stitch and insert the needle down through the next stitch in the same row.
Step 3: Now comes the tricky part: even though your garter ridges look like they could be woven together, there is actually a row of knit stitches in between.
Separate the ridges so you can see the channel in between, and insert your needle under both legs of the next stitch. If you look closely, you will see that you’re following a single strand of yarn through the stitches on the current row.
Repeat Steps 1-3 several more times; we like to do this sequence a minimum of 4-6 times to ensure a secure finish. When you are done, your project will look like this:
Again, you want to be sure that your yarn is pulled through securely, without a lot of slack. However, be sure that you haven’t pulled too tightly and that your work can lay flat and relaxed.
Now, if you look at the right side of your work, you will see that despite the obvious duplicate stitches on the wrong side of your work, there is only a little glimpse of the blue on the front of the work:
When you are using matching yarn in your projects, this little line will fade into the channel between garter ridges!
Knitting: Stockinette Stitch Finishes
To weave in ends on a stockinette stitch project, you will use the following steps.
Step 1: Thread your needle with your tail. On the wrong side of your work, insert the needle diagonally up through two stitches. Pull yarn through so the stitch is snug, but not too tight, allowing for some stretch.
Step 2: Now you will follow the loop on top of the top most stitch and insert the needle diagonally down through the next two stitches in the same row.
Now you will follow the loop under the bottom most stitch, and repeat Step 1 again. Continue repeating Steps 1 and 2 several more times; we like to do this a minimum 4 to 6 times to ensure a secure finish. When you are finished, the wrong side of your project will look like this:
And that’s all there is to weaving in ends using duplicate stitch!
Crochet: Two Methods to Weave in Ends
The two easiest ways to weave in yarn ends on a crochet project are weaving in the ends through the stitches, or using whipstitch. You may even want to use a combination of these techniques, depending on the stitch pattern you've used! For either technique, you will want to use the same color of yarn as used in your project (we're using a contrast color so that you can better see the techniques) and work on the wrong side of the fabric.
To weave in yarn ends through the stitches, you will work in multiple directions to best secure the ends. That means that you can work diagonally and vertically, running your needle through groups of stitches at a time.
To whip stitch your yarn ends, use the darning needle to loop around one half of the chain stitch that each stitch is worked in like so:
In our example, we have combined both of these techniques to secure the yarn:
We hope these tips help you achieve the perfect finish to every project. We also recommend bookmarking or saving this post on Pinterest to save it for later. We look forward to seeing your finished projects—please share them on social media using the #knitterspride hashtag!
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