




Cotton we love you. We love you too linen. And hemp and nettle and all you other plant fibers. We love you and we love you made into yarn.
We do not love you when it comes to sewing in ends.
You slip back out you see. You don’t stay where you are told to stay. After we have laboriously tucked you into the back of a piece of knitting or crochet, you wriggle free.
But that’s okay. You plant fibers just need a little extra attention, a little special treatment. And I know a way to make it that you’ll never escape from the back of my knitting.
As I admit in the video, it takes longer to weave in an end this way. You are essentially unraveling the yarn end as you work it into your piece. But its effective. Think of your end as a tree root. A long, single tap-root is easier to pull out of the ground then an elaborate branching root system.
Hope you found that helpful! You can find all of my Sunday Stitch tutorials right here.





"There is no failure. Only feedback." - Robert Allen
13 Comments on "Weaving in Those Pesky Cotton Ends"
Works well with crochet as well. When crocheting with cotton, I also make it a habit, when adding a new ball in, to leave a foot to eighteen inches of the old yarn and a long tail of the new yarn. I then alternate creating the next few stitches with the old and new yarn. Then I do the same thing on the next row or round with the tail from the new yarn……leaving a few inches to split and weave in. Of course this applies only if it’s the same color.
Well that would work to, lol. having a plan for dealing with your ends, especially in a plant based yarn is always a good thing. I’ve had more than one student come to me after clipping ends to 2 inches… or tying knots and clipping close… asking for help with an unraveling end.
Great video. Thanks for the tip. I haven’t worked with cotton much but have some ideas. This I am guessing would be the technique to use with the Cotlin. Thanks again.
Yes, Cotlin DK is what I’m using. But I also do this with kitchen cotton & 100% linen yarns. Its great anytime you are making a washcloth.
Great tutorial. Thanks for the useful info. Only discovered your blog a few weeks ago and am really enjoying it.
Wonderful! I’m so glad to have another traveler on my yarn-obsessed wanderings. 🙂
Looks like it works great…as long as you don’t look at the reverse side. Any tips for when both sides will be visible because after you clip the ends you’ll still have a bit of the end that shows through?
If I was making a pieces that need to be shown on both sides I would still use the split-ply technique. But instead od going through purl bumps, I do duplicate stitch. And in a matching color of course.
And umm… I left a bit of end showing becasue I wanted them to be visible in the photograph. lol Normally I clip right to teh fabric and then wash/block to settle all my yarn into place.
Great tip. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it for myself, it makes such perfect sense.