The Mystery of Knots in Yarn and How to Work With Them
You’re crocheting your way through your latest creation, and then the worst thing happens: you find a knot in your yarn! First off, don’t panic, Wooblers! Knots may seem like a big deal and can be frustrating, but there’s an easy (peasy) answer to working with them. Let’s get into how to crochet when you come across a knot. Because it’s knot as hard as it seems!
Table of contents
What are knots in yarn?
What should I do if I find a knot in my yarn?
Why are there knots in my yarn?
How many knots are acceptable in a ball of yarn?
What are knots in yarn?
Knots in yarn are simply places where the yarn has been tied together. This can happen during the spinning process, or it can happen after the yarn has been dyed or otherwise processed. Knots can also come up if two ends of yarn are accidentally tangled together.
What should I do if I find a knot in my yarn?
If you’re making a Wooble, the trick is pretty simple — keep crocheting! Amigurumi has both a right side and a wrong side. When you see a knot, just keep crocheting. Right before you reach the knot, adjust your tension so that the knot ends up on the wrong side, which will go inside the amigurumi.
Crochet until the knot is on the inside (the "wrong side") of your piece.
When the knot is on the inside, no one will know it was ever there!
What if you just can’t get that pesky knot to disappear inside your amigurumi? The best thing to do is to cut out the part with the knot and follow the method to add a new yarn ball to reattach your yarn ball to the crochet piece. The good news is that if you know how to do our color change technique, you already know how to add a yarn ball. Of course, in this case, you’re not adding a new ball as much as you’re cutting out the knot and rejoining the ball you’re already working with. Let’s go through the steps:
- Don’t crochet right up to the knot. Leave at least six inches between your current stitch and the knot.
- Cut right before the knot and right after it. You should now have a knotless ball of yarn to add back to what you’re working on.
- Put your hook into the next stitch, yarn over with the yarn you’re already using, and pull through. You should now have two loops on your hook.
- Drape your newly knotless ball of yarn over your hook. The yarn tail should be in front with the rest of the ball behind.
- While you hold onto your new yarn to form a loop, pull that loop through the other two on your hook. There should now be one loop on your hook.
- Pull the old yarn tail to tighten your stitches.
- Wrap the new yarn around your hand and place your hook into the next stitch. Single crochet, but be sure to crochet around the two yarn tails, tucking them away.
- Keep crocheting as normal around the two yarn tails until they’ve both disappeared inside your work.
This process is important to learn because you’re going to need to add a new ball of yarn to your crochet projects at some point. Although the Woobles kits are designed to have the perfect amount of yarn, you may run out of yarn when you’re working on a different kit or project. When you run out of yarn, you’re going to need to add another skein, which follows the same process we’re describing here, except that you won’t have to cut out a knot.
Now you know what to do when you find a knot. Let’s take a closer look at why knots happen.
Why are there knots in my yarn?
There are a few reasons why knots might come up in your yarn, but let’s talk about what happens when you see a knot while working with The Woobles Easy Peasy Yarn. This yarn, which comes in our beginner kits, can sometimes have knots in it, and that’s mainly because it’s a special type of yarn. Our Easy Peasy Yarn is totally tubular, and we mean that literally! It’s a tubular yarn filled with nylon fibers, which is different from how many other types of yarn are made.
So how is our Easy Peasy Yarn made? When we make our Easy Peasy Yarn, we have to start out with a huge amount, which begins with no color. Then, it’s spun into 300-gram balls so that when they’re dyed, the color will spread evenly, giving you that Seas the Day blue you see in Pierre the Penguin or the Leaf It to Us green you love about Fred the Dino.
After they’re dyed, the yarn balls are tied together so that they can be spun into giant cones. These cones must be created for us to then put the yarn through another machine that spins it into small balls like the kind you’d find in a Woobles Beginner Kit. Sometimes the yarn breaks while it’s being spun. We’re passionate about not creating a lot of waste with our yarn-making process, so when this happens, the ends are tied together.
All that spinning can make you dizzy, but more importantly, it can make knots happen. But how many knots is too many?
How many knots are acceptable in a ball of yarn?
This answer may differ depending on whether you’re working with amigurumi or a different type of project. When you’re working with our Easy Peasy Yarn, no more than two knots in a 50-gram ball are acceptable. If you find more than two knots in one yarn ball, email help@thewoobles.com. But before you contact us, you may want to try either crocheting the knot on the inside of your amigurumi or using the technique to add a new yarn ball.
Knots in yarn can be a mystery, but they don't have to be! We hope that this blog post has helped to demystify the world of knotted yarn for you. When it comes to amigurumi, knots don’t have to be scary. Most often, you can just keep crocheting and tuck that knot away on the inside of your Wooble.
Do you have any other questions about knots in yarn? Let us know in the comments below! Happy wooblin’!
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