It won't unravel, I promise

Before I became a Knitter, I was a beader. More specifically, I made beaded jewelry and sold them in shows around my area. It was fun for a while, and I like to think that I what I made was worth what I charged (I figured that if people didn't agree, they would not buy my items). One of the best compliments I got from a customer was that my jewelry was indestructible. She gave an anklet I had made to her sister. Her sister commented that no matter how much abuse she gave it, it did not break. Unfortunately, as is the case with a lot of things that are worn daily, some of the items that I made did break: badgeholders (mostly), and a watch that was supposed to be waterproof but was not (Grrrrrrr). I fixed these items for free, because this is what I felt was the right thing to do, but doing so cost me money and lots and lots of time. This is part of the reason that I stepped away from this creative venue.

When I knit, I think about how to make things "indestructible". I hate the thought of my projects unraveling or falling apart, especially the ones that I spend a lot of time on. I started making sweaters last year and after reading tips on how to prevent unraveling, I connected yarn with the Russian Join: .
I thought, "How perfect! Two yarns that look like one!" Only problem is the bulk that you get in the joined area. Then I started Spit Splicing (also called the Felted Join - less gross term):
. This actually a more satisfactory way of joining for me. However it only works with feltable yarns; Plymouth Encore and other animal/synthetic blends don't felt very well. More often than not, however, I didn't want to take the time to do these "fancy joins" and just started knitting with both strands for 3 stitches (and I tried to do this in the back of a garment if I could, where it was less noticeable). This works fine for animal fibers as they have more spring that disguises the bulk. However, I learned that this is not the case with other less elastic yarns.

This summer, I knit garments with cotton for the first time (after my discovery that parts of my skin do not like alpaca - boo for me). Worse yet, the yarn that I was using had small skeins. Therefore, I had to make several joins in the body of the top. I learned that could not join cotton the way you do with wool. I tried Russian Join (to prevent fraying), the felted join was not even possible, and I tried knitting both strands together. All of these attempts gave me ugly areas. UGLY. To the point that I wanted to cry at my LYS for help. Her daughter gave me a revelation: You don't have to do any of these fancy joins. All I had to do was to just start knitting with the new strand (but leave enough to weave in later). That's it - the knitting and the weaving-in keeps the yarn in place. I took this one step further: I weave the new strand in while I am still knitting with the old strand. When I have about 3 inches left of the old strand, I twist the strands together and start knitting with the new strand, while weaving in the old strand. Not really brilliant...in fact, it felt like a DUH moment, but YAY, no more bulky joins!