Needle Felt Yarn Ends for a Seamless Join

One fun way to get rid of little bits of yarn and to work with them a little more easily in a project is to make a crazy ball or a magic ball of yarn.

These are balls of yarn made with little oddments that are joined to each other so that you can just keep on knitting and not have to think about where to change colors.

Joining the yarns together is usually done by just tying them together, or, if you want to be a little fancier, doing a Russian join to more seamlessly join two yarns together.

Diana at Closet Crafter has another idea that works for magic balls or any other time you want to join two pieces of yarn together without having an end to weave in: needle felting.

A needle felting tool has a bunch of needles on it that you punch into the fibers, which eventually melds them together. It’s sort of the manual version of the felted join, but it works on acrylics and blends as well (but not cotton, Diana reports).

Have you ever made a magic or crazy ball of yarn? I’d love to hear about it and what you used it for.

[Photo via Closet Crafter.]

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

Another Way to Use Up All Your Sock Yarn Scraps

Gather Your Scraps for a Fun Wrap

A Scrappy Shawl Knitting Pattern to Use All Your Odd Balls

Use All Your Yarn Scraps on This Great Cardigan Knitting Pattern

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply