Crochet + Fiber · Tutorial
Invisible joins on a blanket border
A worked-in-the-round border is only as good as the place it closes. The slip-stitch join every pattern tells you to use leaves a small step and a hard knot of yarn at the corner. This is how we close every round on a Finch blanket so the border reads as one continuous line, even under a lamp.
Step by step
Step 1
Mark the first stitch of the round
Before you work a single border stitch, put a marker in the very first stitch. Move it up every round. Half of all visible joins are really miscounted rounds, and you cannot fix what you cannot find.
Step 2
Work the round, then stop one stitch short of joining
Complete the round normally. Do not slip stitch into the top of the beginning stitch. Instead, finish the last stitch, pull the loop up about three inches and cut the working yarn, leaving a six inch tail. Draw the tail all the way through the loop so it cannot unravel.
Step 3
Thread the tail and enter the first stitch from the front
Thread the tail on the tapestry needle. Insert the needle under both loops of the first stitch of the round, going front to back. Pull gently until the yarn lies flat. You have just drawn a false stitch head over the gap.
Step 4
Return into the last stitch
Take the needle back down into the centre of the last stitch you worked — the same hole the tail came out of — and out the back. This is the whole trick: the tail traces the exact path a real stitch top would take.
Step 5
Set the tension against its neighbours
Tug just until the new stitch head is the same height as the two stitches on either side of it. Too tight and the corner draws in and puckers; too loose and it reads as a hole. Look at it from three feet away before you decide.
Step 6
Bury the tail on the diagonal
Weave the tail through the back of four or five stitches, then reverse direction and go back through two. The change of direction is what keeps a wool tail from working loose after a winter of use. Trim flush, never on a stretch.
Step 7
Stagger every join
Start each new round one or two stitches along from where the last one closed, so the joins never stack into a visible seam line up the side of the blanket. On our herringbone border we move the join a quarter turn each round.
If it goes sideways
If the join shows as a small bump, you almost certainly went under one loop instead of two. Pull the tail back out — a needle-woven join undoes cleanly — and re-enter under both loops. If the corner puckers, you tightened before comparing to the neighbouring stitches. Ease the tail back a hair and steam-block that corner flat under a damp cloth.
Done properly, you should not be able to find the join with your fingertips, let alone your eyes. That is the standard every piece in the House Collection is held to.
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