leaving tails?

[Darby]

How long do you leave CO tails or when you have to switch to another ball of yarn... how long do you leave those after weaving?

[suzeeq]

I usually have mine short, a couple of inches, but many people like them 3-4" long. After weaving in, there shouldn't be anything left, so if you've woven them through a few stitches, then just clip off the extra. If you want to use the tail yarn for seaming, then you'd want to leave about 2-3 times the length of the seam.

[campbellmom549]

I always leave 6-8 inches. But I like to weave my ends in a lot so I know they're secure and I don't like sewing with a short length of yarn.

[Jaxhil]

I leave about 6-8 inches as well, for weaving in. I do like to leave about 1/2 an inch after cutting off the woven-in yarn, because mine seem to poke out the front eventually if I don't. Clearly suzeeq is better at weaving in that me!

One thing I just tried today when weaving in yarn on a dishcloth was to weave in most of the yarn as usual, then when I just had about three inches left, I split the four-ply yarn into two sections and wove those in separately. That worked much better and doesn't show at all. It's much less lumpy!

[suzeeq]

I usually just pull the ends through the nearby sts on the WS with a crochet hook. You can't tell they're there and there's no lumpy double thick stitch. Unless I'm misunderstanding how you're supposed to do it...

[MerigoldinWA]

I leave a longish tail too most of the time. If I can I like to use the duplicate stitch method of hiding ends and like to have a longer tail for that. I've never used a crochet hook for working in ends in knit (I used to for crochet), but so many thing work.

[Marria]

I recently started using duplicate stitch for weaving in ends and I really like that method because it really secures the ends well, and I don't have trouble with them popping out on the other side.

When I'm snipping off the end, I pull on the end, stretching it a bit, and snip it. Then when I let go, it disappears into the fabric.

[dturner]

I usually just pull the ends through the nearby sts on the WS with a crochet hook. You can't tell they're there and there's no lumpy double thick stitch. Unless I'm misunderstanding how you're supposed to do it...

I had never thought of using a crochet hook. I'll have to give that a try!

[suzeeq]

Probably that's how I get away with shorter tails than people who use a tapestry needle. With the needle, you'd have to have a tail at least twice as long as the needle, I think.

[Marria]

Sue-when you use the crochet hook do you run into issues with the ends popping back through on the other side?