Knitting Your Ends In

On Fridays -- the best day of the week -- I work at my LYS.  Last Friday, I drew the short straw in your 3 car, 4 driver household and had to be dropped off 2 hours early -- not a problem when you work in a knitting store.   I grabbed a couple balls of wool, pulled out my needles and continued with my log cabin fiesta.  As Friday turned into Saturday, and Saturday into Sunday, this log cabin square continued to grow and grow.

The colors are not very accurate, but you get the idea.

I find when I'm in a knitting groove, it's best to avoid bogging yourself down with laundry, bill paying, or weaving ends in.  If presented with a plethora of ends -- like my log cabin squares -- I opt for knitting my ends in as I go.   Shall I show you...

It takes two knit stitches (repeated several times) to lock in an end.  The first stitch -- steps 1 to 5 below -- twists the end and the working yarn.  The second stitch locks in the twisted.  Repeat these 6 steps for about 2 inches to secure the end. 

Step 1 -- Hold the end in your left hand and the working yarn in your right.  In this example, the end is sage green and the working yarn is turquoise. Insert the right needle into the first stitch on the left needle.
Step 2 --  Lay the end over the right needle from right to left.
Step 3 -- Wrap the working yarn as you normally would to create the new stitch.
Step 4 -- Move the end to the right and off the right needle.
Step 5 -- Finish the knit stitch by drawing the new stitch through the old and sliding the old stitch off the left needle. This completes the first stitch and twists the end and working yarn.
Step 6 -- Without changing the positions of the end and the working yarn, knit one more stitch normally. This locks in the twisted end.