Beyond the Basics: Grafting Des Moines IA

Grafting

Grafting, also called weaving or kitchener stitch, joins two open edges stitch by stitch using a yarn needle. The grafted edges resemble a row of stitches and leave no seam. This makes grafting useful when a seam is undesirable, such as on mittens, hoods that may fold over and the toes of socks.

Because you must follow the path of the stitches with the yarn needle, grafting is best used on simple stitches such as stockinette, reverse stockinette or garter stitch, which have been worked in flat, smooth yarns, making the stitches clearly visible.

You should graft stitches together while they are still on the knitting needles, slipping a few off at a time as you work. Be sure that the needles are pointing in the same direction when the wrong sides of your work are placed together. In order to do this, you will need to work one row less on one needle or reverse one of the needles.

When grafting garter stitch, it is important that the purl stitches of the front piece face the knit stitches of the back piece.

A grafted seam on stockinette stitch	1. Insert the yarn needle purlwise into the first stitch on the front piece, then knitwise into the first stitch on the back piece. Draw the yarn through.	2. Insert the yarn needle knitwise into the first stitch on the front piece again. Draw the yarn through.
3. Insert the yarn needle purlwise into the next stitch on the front piece. Draw the yarn through.	4. Insert the yarn needle purlwise into the first stitch on the back piece again. Draw the yarn through.	5. Insert the yarn needle knitwise into the next stitch on the back piece. Draw the yarn through. Repeat steps 2 through 5.

When joining ribbing with a purl stitch at each edge, insert the yarn needle under the horizontal bar in the center of a knit stitch on each side.	When joining ribbing with a knit stitch at each edge, use the bottom loop of the purl stitch on one side and the top loop of the corresponding purl stitch on the other side.	When joining purl and knit stitch edges, skip knit stitch and join two purl stitches as at left.

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