No, I didn’t move to Russia… but I have been using the Russian Join with my sweater project so I thought I would share how to do that particular join. Its particularly useful with a plied yarn.

To start you will need an appropriately sized tapestry needle, and of course the old and new yarn.  Prepare to join when you still have several inches of yarn left.

Start by threading one end of the yarn onto your needle.  Then thread your tail end back through the strand it came from.  You may want to untwist your plies a bit to make this neater.

Do not pull it tight as you want to leave a small loop.

Move your tapestry needle to your other yarn end and you are going to do the same thing while threading your new loop through the one you just made.

At this point you now have two loops connected together. Gently pull the tails of your yarns and those loops will snug up.  I also recommend a tug or two on the main thread of your yarn during this process.

Now you will just need to trim your tails.  

This particular join is a bit more difficult to spot as its just a spot in your long yarn that is a bit thicker.  Its also fairly strong as the pulling of the yarn away from the knot works to tighten the knot.

As for my sweater… I’m half a sleeve from being done!  So hopefully I’ll have a finished garment to show you soon.