Break or Cut?

I was recently asked why some patterns say to cut your yarn and some tell you to break your yarn. The answer is too good not to share with all my knitting friends.

Making the cut

I think we all understand what happens when you cut your yarn. Snip, snip with the scissors, the excess yarn is gone and your yarn tail has a blunt end. From cotton to wool, silk to synthetic. No matter the fiber content, any yarn can be cut with a good pair of scissors.

Now take a break

When you break your yarn, you're just pulling it until... SNAP... it breaks apart. Breaking your yarn creates a wispy yarn tail end. However, not all yarns break.

• Wool and mostly wool blend yarns that are worsted weight or thinner almost always break
• Very thin yarns, laceweight or thinner will usually break
• Non-wool yarns that are thicker than laceweight usually will NOT break.

Go ahead. Give it a try with scraps from your stash an see which yarns break (being careful not to break your fingers).

When I prefer to break instead of cut

No matter what the pattern says, if I'm knitting with wool here are some situations when I prefer to break my yarn rather than cut it.

• When joining yarns together with a Russian join - breaking the yarn helps the wispy end stay concealed better than a blunt cut end.
• When joining yarns together with a spit join - breaking the yarn helps minimize the thickness of the joined ends.
• When I'm too lazy to dig out my scissors - which is almost always.