Eskimimi Knits knitting blog

I thought I would take a few minutes today to answer a question that cropped up after my last blog post about working with Rowan bamboo tape and working out a way to join the yarns without having to weave the ends in after the event, namely, would the two ends pull apart if you tugged them?

As last night was the favourite TV night at Monkey Towers (Question Time, followed by This Week, all washed down with a bottle of Blue Nun, or, as it happens, a little Southern Comfort and Coke) I had a couple of hours to go pattern surfing and commit the bamboo tape to a pair of needles and a future as something lovely.

I decided upon a sailors scarf for the springtime – not too bulky around the collar part, but enough in the silky cool bamboo to keep any breeze off of the chest when worn with an open necked cardigan, or something similar.  (How I long for the warmth of days when this is the only required precaution against the occasional intemperate breeze…)

Anyway, the first join between the remnant lengths of yarn was only a few yards into the frankenstein ball I had threaded together, the second occurring about 8 inches into the scarf.  I had no issues when reaching the joined areas where the two lengths of yarn had come together.  I was careful not to tug the two yarns apart as I was approaching the join, but I had fed the new length of yarn a good 4 or 5 inches into the working yarn to ensure that the  join was secure and ran over 8 or so stitches.  Once the first stitch has been made with the ‘doubled’ section of yarn it anchors both the inner and outer yarns together and the join is very secure – much like when you ‘knit in’ a new length of yarn, but with the added security of one strand being inside the other.  It is also makes quite a subtle join:

Close-up view of stitch where 'old' yarn length ends.

The first join is in the narrower neck portion of the scarf, but I’m having a little trouble locating where it is as it is in the seed stitch area making it hard to find, but wherever it is it is well hidden and secure.  A close up view of a row of stitches shows how both yarns are knitted together, one inside the other, negating the need to weave the ends in once the project is finished:

Row of stitches where new and old lengths of yarn are knitted together.

A couple of things I have thought about since joining the yarns and starting the project now strike me as worth noting:

• There is less chance of inadvertently pulling the two lengths of yarn apart before you reach the join if you put the ‘new’ length of yarn inside the old, rather than the other way around
• If the yarn is of an adequately loose weave and you could find a needle that was both fine enough to pass through the weave whilst threaded with the yarn and yet posses an eye that will accommodate the bulk of the yarn, it would negate the need to use a piece of sewing thread to anchor the yarn to the needle (I don’t actually have a needle that will work for in this instance, so that is purely hypothetical.

I’m really enjoying working with the bamboo tape – it behaves very differently in stockinette stitch compared to its properties in moss stitch.  The ‘flat’ construction is all but impossible to discern in stockinette stitch, whereas it is more apparent in the raised edges and bumps of moss stitch.  I don’t feel that my stitches are as evenly formed working with the tape yarn, but I do not dislike the effect.  Some rows seem to have more twist in them, some stand slightly proud of the knitting, but with the slight sheen it almost gives the impression of raw silk.

Rowan bamboo tape

I am trying to have a good think about what I can make with some Rowan Bamboo Tape yarn. I have a full skein weighing 50g, plus a few remnants which weigh just over 50g when combined, so the equivalent of two full skeins.

I have never worked with a tape or ribbon yarn before, so I am eager to find out how it behaves on the needles – how easy it is to find a comfortable passage into the stitches with the right needle, and whether the yarn should be kept flat at all costs or allowed to twist as I knit it. I have absolutely no idea what I might make with the yarn as yet, but I am eager to get experimenting. First, though, I wanted to join the remnant lengths together to form a single length of yarn, so I never had a web of ends to weave in after the fact, which I am worried would wriggle free like oiled tagliatelli after the fact, anyway.

I thought about sewing them together, but settled on making a join that is something like a russian join, in that it requires threading one yarn into the other using a needle to give a continuous length of yarn, but it works a little differently. I have uploaded a brief video below.