Weaving Techniques || Another Look at The Weaver’s Knot

I know I’ve written about the weaver’s knot a few times now. This is something that I read about a while ago, but hadn’t tried until more recently. I always thought, sure that looks helpful I’ll try it one day. But once I did try it, WOW! It really is a game changer.

Seriously the pure benefit of not having billions of ends to weave in is so exciting. Not only is weaving ends in time consuming, but sometimes it can effect the front of your weave. A weaver’s knot, when done correctly will secure your weave and leave you with little “clean up” in the end.

This has had such a positive impact for my weaving that I wanted to again share this technique with you and also give you some additional tips that I’ve learned while using this knot.

Here are the steps to making a weaver’s knot (original post here):

step 1| taking your old thread end, make a loop.

step 2| bring your new thread end through the loop of the old and across the top of the old thread

step 3| then bring the new thread under the old thread end tail

step 4| finally bring the new thread through the loop again, this makes the knot

step 5| Pull both ends of the threads in the opposite direction to tie the knot. You will have two threads on each side that you want to pull evenly, making sure to pull each thread hard so that the knot tied is tight.

After you have tied your knot, test it by pulling on just the long threads (not the ends). You should be able to pull both sides of the thread without the knot un-tying. If you pull and it un-ties, then remake your knot. Once the knot holds tight, then you can cut the extra yarn tails off.

Here is a simple video of how I tie the weaver’s knot.

I’ve used this technique to make yarn from scrap pieces that were long, but too short to bother weaving with. Tying the scrap pieces together helped me have enough yarn length to make a really lovely weave.

One tip I highly recommend is when using the weaver’s knot is weave as you normally would, but once you’re close to switching threads, leave yourself at least 2 inches. Take your new thread and using the weaver’s knot, tie it to the old thread. Make sure that where you tie the knot, the thread will be in the back of the warp threads. Trim your threads ends and continue weaving, placing the knot behind the warp threads.

Here is a visual example of the back of my weave while still in progress. As you can see there are a lot of knots. Some are really apparent, while others are harder to see (and this is the back!).  There are 8 knots in just this picture, the finished weave had even more.  And as you can see, I tied together yarns of different weights with no issue. When I was finally finished with the weave, I only had two end tails to weave in, the thread at the beginning and the thread that I ended with. It was such a relief!

And as if having no yarn ends to weave in isn’t enough reason to try this out, I also showed how you could use this technique to warp your loom up with different warp threads!

So have you tried this yet in your weavings? I’d love to hear if you found it as helpful as I have.

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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