Now that you have finished the seams, the bands and all the other stuff, you are ready to sew in the ends. Sewing in ends before you have made a seam is a waste of time, because there is no place to hide the ends easily, and they can pop out as you join the seams.

A one colour garment presents no problem as to where to sew in the yarn. Unless you have some join in the fabric of the knitting, all the threads will be on an edge, and edges are where the seams or bands occur [pic 1].

1: These ends are easy to hide by sewing them into the seams.

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Making ends vanish

Find a sharp pointed needle with a large eye. Undo any loose knots you might have made when adding in a new end. Usually, there are two ends at one point. With one end, push the threaded needle through the edge of the rows that make the ridge of the seam. Pull the thread through and cut it off closely. Repeat with the second end in the opposite direction along the seam. Basically, you are burying the ends in the seam [pic 2].

2: Using a sharp needle, sew ends into the ridge of the seam in opposite directions from each other.

Sometimes you have a short end that will be impossible to thread into the needle and then sew in to the seam. Push the unthreaded needle along the seam starting from where the end is sticking out, then thread the end into the eye and pull the end through [pic 3].

3: With a very short end, place the needle through the seam first, and then thread the end through the eye of the needle.

Seams should be as fine as possible so that they will have the same flexibility as the knitted fabric (see here). For this reason, it is important to make sure that the ends don’t add too much thickness to the seam. The ends will stay perfectly in place as long as you make sure that you have buried them adequately in the seam. Also, take the ends some distance along the seam. If they are too short, they could work their way out more easily.

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