How to Splice Wool Yarns

When knitting, you may need to join two yarns, which is referred to as splicing yarns. The necessity for splicing yarns will occur when either:

• You knit to the end of a ball of yarn and need to splice the same color to continue knitting.
• You need to splice two different colors together. This can occur at the beginning of a new row when pattern colors change.
  

The benefit of splicing is the avoidance of knots. Knots create yarn tails, which should be woven into the knitted garment. Knotting may be an initially fast way to begin knitting with a new yarn, but knots can create bulk and the tails require time and patience to weave. 

Of course, if you prefer to knot your yarns, please go ahead with your preferred method. Knitting should always be a pleasurable experience. 

I believe that splicing yarns creates a smoother, finer, more seamless finish to the garment. If you’re open to the concept of splicing, the following is my method, which works especially well with Shetland wool. 

HOW TO SPLICE:

Determine which two ends to splice. 

In the following figure, the pink yarn will be spliced with the white yarn to create one continuous yarn.Step 1, Splicing Yarns

Unwind each yarn approximately 4 inches (or more), separating the plies. 

In the following figure, the 2 ply jumper weight yarn is visibly separated.

Step 2, Splicing Yarns

Four (or more) inches from the end of the yarn, break one single ply. 

Do the same with the other yarn, as illustrated in the following figure.

Overlap the single plies to create one continuous yarn.

Step 3, Splicing Yarns

 

Use your own saliva (which is best, but otherwise, you can use water) to wet the overlapped single plies.

Place the wet, overlapped plies in the palm of your hand.

Rub your two palms together to create heat and friction that will felt the two plies together seamlessly. The spliced, felted yarns will create a spiral, as illustrated in the following figure.

Step 4, Splicing Yarns

Continue rubbing your palms together (and add more moisture, if necessary) until there is a strong bond between the two spliced plies. Ensure that the entire 4-inch spliced section is felted. Resume knitting with the spliced yarn. 

Notice the spiral color effect of the splicing in the previous figure. This type of splicing creates a subtle transition from one color to the next. The spiral effect is invisible when splicing together two identical colors. 

When splicing together two different colors, the spiral effect might be undetectable amongst the color explosion that is Fair Isle knitting. 

However, if your knitting requires a hard color transition (rather than the soft color transition created by the spiral effect), then consider splicing with the following alternate method. 

Follow Step 1 and Step 2, as illustrated above. 

For Step 3, follow this alternate method to achieve a hard color transition:

Loop the single plies together, then fold each color onto itself. 

Wet the overlapped plies. Place in your palm. Rub your two palms together to create heat and friction.

Alternate Step 3, Splicing Yarns

This method of splicing creates a hard color transition, as illustrated below. 

Good luck with your knitting and splicing yarns. Have a nice day, and happy knitting!