What to Do About Pesky Miss Spins

To Knit Them or Weave Them?

As I was knitting last night, I cam across not one, not two, but three knots in the course of a single folded hat brim. It made me think “what do other knitters do with these miss spins?”.

So I’m asking?

What is your preferred course of action when you encounter a miss spin?

Earlier in my knitting, I would get annoyed with these but I wouldn’t get so upset that I let them stop me. I was using machine spun yarns that were generally more budget friendly, so I would hit a miss spin occasionally.

At this time in my knitting, I was more of a finished project knitter rather than a process knitter. I’d knit and knit and knit to churn out as many knitting projects as I could. So fixing a miss spin would take valuable time away from knitting.

I would generally either:

• Keep Knitting and pray it held.
• Pull to tighten the knot hoping that it would hold…and continue knitting.
• Cut the knot out, tie a new knot with longer tails and then knit with that…weaving in the yarn tails later.

How I handle Miss Spins Now:

I found a way that works for me, that allows me to continue knitting but also to come back and weave in these yarn tails. This tactic was born out of necessity. One evening I was knitting, but I didn’t have a pair of scissors or snips handy. So I left myself some inches of yarn before the knot, and then some inches after, and allowing these to hang at the back of the work, I’d start knitting again.

That’s kind of hard to explain in text. Basically, you just pretend you’ve cut the knot, and allow a ‘yarn tail’s’ worth of yarn to hang on either side of the yarn. This means that when you knit the next stitch, its as if you were working with a new length of yarn.

Why is this beneficial?

I’m still a bit of a finished project knitter and this saves me time. When I’m ready, I can go back and snip out these pesky knots, and weave the tails in with the rest. Stopping, breaking the yarn, and then starting again interrupts the process or the flow of knitting.

Now, I can continue knitting as if I was just ignoring the knot, and have the professional quality in my finished project.

How Do You Handle Miss Spins?

One of the beautiful things about knitting, is that there are so many techniques and different ways to do to things. Just think about how many ways there are to join a new yarn. (I’m still thinking about trying the Russian Join but haven’t brought myself to do it yet).

So I’d love to know – what is your preferred method of dealing with these pesky knots? Leave your method in the comments on this post, or respond to the posts on my Facebook or Instagram accounts.