Attaching a New Skein of Yarn

There are several options when starting a new skein of yarn Here are a few ideas:
**If you are working with wool or animal fiber that felts easily you can felt your ends together with a felting needle. To do this, slightly splay the plies of both ends you are joining. Lay over each other, overlapping an inch or so, and then punch together with the felting needle, turn sideways and felt again so the strand is compact and round.
**Also with wool fiber, you can spit splice the yarn. Tease out approximately, but not perfectly, about equal lengths of 2 plies of yarn. Overlap the ends, again approximately. Lay the overlapped ends across your hand and either spit on it or us water. You get the yarn nice and wet, then you gently rub it back and forth between your hands, generating both friction and heat, until you have a nice, continuous piece of yarn.
**Leave a long tail in your work and then leave an equally long tail for the new strand and simply continue knitting. Weave the ends in later.
**Merge the ends with a darning needle. This works like Chinese thumb cuffs if your yarn has multiple plies and works similarly to a person holding both wrists with the opposite hands, from the inside. For explanation purposes: we want to join yarn A to yarn B. Thread the darning needle with A. Starting about 1.5-2 inches back from the end of B insert the needle lengthwise down the center of B for another inch or so (going towards the work or ball). Go far enough with the needle and A so that the tip of A is hidden within B, remove the needle and adjust if necessary. Then take the little 1.5-2 inch tail of B, thread the needle and, starting at where A went into B, slide B into A going the opposite direction. Go far enough through A to hide this end of B as well. Remove needle and adjust or trim.

Polymar Clay Buttons

Polymer clay comes in tons of colors, and you don't need much skill to flatten it, cut out a circle, and poke holes in it with a toothpick to make a button. It bakes in the oven in fifteen minutes or so. Of course, you can make them as plain or fancy as you wish, and there are tons of free instructions and ideas on the web. When you cook them make sure you don’t use utensils that are used for food. Using a sheet of tin foil works well.

Customized Yarn

To add a novelty look to your knitting try combining your yarn with a colored thread. The thread will naturally wind around the yarn as you knit, creating a bumpiness. There are many novelty threads available for quilting, some are shiny or springy, some in variegated or changing colors. Knitting a thread with a yarn that tends to stretch, such as pure alpaca, can also stabilize the finished work and support the yarn.

Determining Needle Size for Yarns

To determine a needle size for a yarn (homespun or unlabeled), double the yarn and, using a needle sizer, find the hole where your doubled yarn goes through comfortably; touching all sides but not squeezed. Use this as the primary needle size and compare to the pattern recommendations. For mohair, boucle, and novelty yarn, consider the fuzz/loop as part of the yarn width. For thick and thin, combine the fattest and thinnest parts to do your measuring.