Fix-it Friday: How to Spit Splice

You may remember my last post about joining a new yarn.  I suggested that you simply tie a new yarn onto the old strand and keep knitting.  This method turns out the be quite controversial – read the comments from that post and you’ll see! Some of you knitters really hate to have any knots in your knitting.

This time, I’ve decided to post about a different method for joining a new yarn. The spit splice.  Yep.  It’s just what it sounds like! This method uses spit to help felt the tail of the old ball of yarn to the tail of the new ball of yarn.  This only works with animal fiber yarn, not with plant fibers or synthetics.

Here’s how the spit splice join works. (I get most of my knitting done on road trips – so this series of photos was taken in the car! can any of you busy people relate?)

1.   Untwist the plies to open up the strands of the old yarn for about 2 to 3 inches.

2. Open up the plies of the new ball of yarn for about the same length and lay the two yarns end to end, so that they overlap:

3. Spit onto the yarn ends and rub your hands together with the yarns inside. Some people cheat and just use water, tea, etc., but for this to be an authentic spit splice, you know what the essential ingredient must be!

4.  You can stop agitating the splice when the yarn ends are all smoothly felted together: