"There's a knot in it,"

I was told.
Half way through the row of a beginner knitter this is nothing short of disaster...or is it?
A new knitter in the group is making a scarf. Her work is slow and painstaking. It is also exquisitely even. When she gains confidence she is going to be an excellent knitter. 
But for now she is making herself a plain garter stitch scarf out of acrylic yarn. It is not what I would have chosen for a first project but she is happy with it as well as old enough and patient enough to persist with it to the end. 
Yesterday she came across a knot in the yarn she was using. She is nearing the end of her first 100gm ball of yarn and we had discussed what she needed to do when joining in the second. You can't splice that sort of yarn - and I am not keen on splicing anyway.
I explained what to do - and I made her do it herself.
As I was doing it I tried to remember what my grandmother had taught me. I don't remember coming across a knot. I know that the first time I needed to add a new piece of yarn it was because my grandmother was helping me to make yet another pot holder but,  in her wisdom, this second one was striped. 
"You will be able to see it grow," she told me - and she was right.  I could see it go from blue to pale blue to yellow to brown. I was simply using the left over yarn she had from other projects. I know she must have sewn all the ends in because my manual dexterity did not extend to holding a sewing needle of any sort. All the same I knitted those stripes and I saw it grow. 
I was also taught about the magic of splicing. Grandma was an expert - or so it seemed to me. Even looking back after all this time I think she was probably very good at it. Of course there was no such thing as "machine washable" yarn when she was taught to knit so it was much easier to divide the strands of yarn, remove some an then join the old onto the new. I remember Grandma explaining how you didn't want knots in your knitting, particularly in socks. Seeing someone splice yarn always takes me back to watching Grandma join in another ball of yarn, grey yarn for Grandpa's socks. Yarn came in skeins too - held by me as she wound it.
That never seemed to tangle or knot.
I wonder about all that now. New knitters can learn what to do about a knot but they rarely learn about splicing and, most of the time, yarn comes ready wound. 
It's not nearly as much fun.