Find out why knots appear in your yarn, and what you should do with them.

What is a yarn knot?

Knots aren't tangled yarn, they're a point where the yarn has been broken and tied back together. They can be a frustrating but unfortunately inevitable part of knitting with natural fibers.

Finding a knot in a new ball of yarn can be irritating but unless you hand spin your yarn, and know where your joins are, you’re likely to come across more than a few if you regularly knit with natural yarn.

Where do yarn knots come from?

Stitch & Story’s yarns are spun from 100% merino wool, a completely natural and sustainably sourced fiber. Because of this, it’s not possible to have a continuous thread for an entire yarn batch that totals one ton.

The knots are made by spinners joining new threads, or repairing breaks that occur during the spinning process. Knots could be anywhere in the one ton of spun wool, so figuring out which balls have the knots to throw them away would increase the cost of all the yarn produced - not to mention a terrible waste of wool! This means occasionally, but not often, you’ll find a knot in a ball of yarn.

What should I do with a yarn knot?

A knot should be treated like joining a new ball. Untie the knot or cut it out, then either spit-splice, felt it, or leave a tail long enough to weave in and start knitting with the new thread.

A few knots per 1 ton of yarn are considered acceptable but it is very rare to have knots appear in more than one ball per dye lot.  If you receive yarn from Stitch & Story that has more knots than you think it should please contact us at hello@stitchandstory.com