I am knitting a scarf that needs to be joined, or grafted in the center. I am woking the pattern in a rib stitch of K2P2. How can I work the kitchener stitch in this pattern?
Grafting in k2p2 pattern
Hi Jeanette, welcome!! :waving:
First, you should know that the only way you’ll have perfection with this, is if you’re grafting the top of knitting to the bottom of knitting. (That is, if you’ve exposed live stitches on the bottom edge somehow, for instance with a provisional cast-on, or by cutting out a row of stitches and exposing the work that way.) If you’re grafting two tops together in ribbing, they’ll be shifted 1/2 stitch relative to each other, and you’ll see that the virtical grain of the ribbing doesn’t match up, so it won’t be perfect. In that case, just follow the instructions in the first quote, and ignore the rest of my specifications, which are about achieving a perfectly seamless join.
Perfection on this can be complicated, so be warned! I’ve found this to be challenging and fussy myself. In figuring this out, I had to actually break the rules I read in a book, and change the pattern for it to work out. The book didn’t address certain factors, so I was left to my own devices, and I only add my ammendments here because they can be paired with the additional information that is needed to go forth with confidence. Perhaps some brilliant person can work out how to follow her instructions as they are, and achieve perfection (anyone? I’d be grateful!), but in the mean time, I’ll tell you my alterations. So I’m first going to quote the book in it’s integrity, assuming she’s the expert in it, and then quote it again, adding my modifications which I found I needed to make it work.
The quote is from the Principals of Knitting. “Near” refers to the knitting needle closest to you, “Far” is the other needle. Watch my kitchener video if you haven’t already. It’s a bit confusing at first, but similar enough to how I explain it in the video, that hopefully the instructions are clear. I like her original instructions, because basically, you’re doing plain kitchener stitch on the knit stitches, and reversing them for purl stitches.
…Here we must have eight steps: one for each needle when the two stitches to be worked on are both knit; a pair for when they are a knit stitch, then a purl stitch; a pair for when they are both purl; and a pair for when they are a purl stitch, then a knit stitch. I will assume that the Double Rib sequence starts with a pair of Knit stitches.
Preliminary step: Near/Purl, far/Knit (same as usual)
- Near on two Knit: Knit/drop, Purl
- Far on two knit: Purl/drop, Knit
- Near on one Knit, one Purl: Knit/drop, knit
- Far on one Knit, one Purl: Purl/drop, purl
- Near on two Purl: Purl/drop, Knit
- Far on two Purl: knit/drop, Purl
- Near on one Purl, On knit: Purl/drop, Purl
- Far on one Purl, one Knit: Knit/drop, Knit
The missing info, was that when you’re including the “bottom” of work (live stitches exposed on the bottom of knitting), the stitches you put on the needle from the ribbing are actually the strands between the original stitches, and are offset by 1/2 stitch. (It fixes itself once you’ve grafted, but it’s confusing at this stage!) So, holding these exposed bottom stitches above the exposed top stitches of the piece your grafting to, you have to then decide whether you need to shift the top piece to the left or right relative to the bottom piece before beginning. I found it necessary to shift to the right, so that the first stitch you’re working of the exposed bottom stitches, is actually the strand between the two knit stitches. These stitches are used as the ones on the far needle. I had to alter the pattern in two places to make it work, but then it worked perfectly:
(my alterations are in red)
Preliminary step: Near/Purl, far/Knit (same as usual)
- Near on two Knit: Knit/drop, Purl
- Far on two knit: Purl/drop, Knit
- Near on one Knit, one Purl: Knit/drop, knit
- Far on one Knit, one Purl: [color=red]Knit[/color]/drop, purl
- Near on two Purl: Purl/drop, Knit
- Far on two Purl: knit/drop, Purl
- Near on one Purl, On knit: Purl/drop, Purl
- Far on one Purl, one Knit: [color=red]Purl[/color]/drop, Knit
Sorry I can’t give you an easier answer on this one!
Amy,
Thank you for answering my post. I have printed out your directions and will give it a go. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Amy,
I see what you mean about the pattern shifting. It is all very confusing to me. Do you have a plan to make a video about this pattern in the future for the web site? It would be nice to see it done properly
LOL, thanks, Jeannette, I was about to ask the very same thing! Amy, that would be the very BEST VIDEO online!!! :cheering: :cheering: :cheering:
ok, here is what I decided to do and it came out ok. I took my K2,P2 ribbing on the needle and knit a single row across on both ends of the scarf where it needed to be attached. Then I did the kitchener stitch. I think with the next scarf, I will try one row of K on only one needle and see how that looks. Oh, I was working on size 6 needles and the single row of K was done with size 3. I may try a smaller size too.
would you like to see a picture of the join?
Yes! This works! I’m just finishing up Elann’s chemo turban, and I grafted it the way Amy describes here, and it looks perfect. Wooo! (I did knit swatches ahead of time and practice–at first I didn’t even understand her post, but then I created my own instructions by extrapolating from regular kitchener and a description I found of garter kitchener, and the result had exactly the two tiny glitches Amy described. Then when I came back to her post I was able to understand it. So I used her two changes, and voila!)
So have hope, it can indeed be done.
Many thanks, Amy!!
Anise
PS: Actually, this pattern has k4 p4 ribbing, but the same principle applies.
This is so brilliant. I have a 3x4 rib that I want to graft and Amy’s information has really helped. Thank you
Fran
Hi!
I’m trying to do kitchener grafting on the Clara Cowl [I can’t post links because my post count isn’t high enough, but it should be findable on ravelry], which is in k1p1 ribbing. I tried both the directions in the pattern (which involve separating the knits and purls onto different needles and kitchenering them separately), and I also tried the directions Amy posted on another thread:
Preliminary step: Near/Purl, far/Knit (that is, into the Near needle–the one closer to you, go purlwise, then into the far needle go knitwise, just as you normally do to start)
- Near: Knit/drop, Knit
- Far: Purl/drop, Purl
- Near: Purl/drop, Purl
- Far: Knit/drop, Knit
With both methods, I ended up with one side being offset by half a stitch as Amy describes here. Is it possible to modify the instructions here in the same way you modified the k2p2 kitchener instructions to prevent the offset? (Or does anyone have any other ideas on how to get this thing seamed together kitchener-style such that the ribs line up?)
Thank you!
I’ve only tried Amy’s method for k2p2 rib which worked seamlessly as it should. For k1p1, there’s this site’s pictures for separating k’s and p’s but I don’t know if this is any more helpful than what you’ve tried. You could also do 3 needle bind off which leaves a narrow, neat seam. There’s a video under the Free Videos tab at the top of the page, Cast Offs
Hi Amy
Please accept my apologies for asking for clarification on a matter that is now ancient history! During a desperate search for information on grafting the two ends of a cowl with a 2x2 ribbed cable running down a garter stitch background (‘Millwater’), I came across your wonderful, detailed, informative post. I realise I am waaaaay out of my league here, but I wondered if I could just check a couple of things with you:
Does
Near on two knit: knit/drop, purl
mean: [B]when the stitches on both the front needle (nearest you) and the back needle (further away from you) are both knit stitches[/B], go into the stitch on the front needle as if to knit, drop that stitch, then go into the next stitch on the front needle as if to purl, but leave that stitch on the needle?
Similarly, does:
Far on one knit, one purl: knit/drop, purl
Mean that the far needle has a knit stitch nearest the tip, and a purl stitch to the left of that knit stitch?
The thing that is totally confusing me is the description of the sequence of the stitches. I can’t tell if one knit, one purl means that the stitch nearest the tip of the needle is a knit stitch and the stitch to the left of it is a purl stitch, or if (as in my clumsy ‘explanation’ in example 1, above), it refers to the stitches on the front needle and on the back needle.
I am sorry to burden you with these questions, but I am at a total loss and would appreciate any help you might be able to offer.
The other question I wanted to ask was how I could watch your video on this complex subject - I can’t seem to locate it anywhere.
With a million thanks in anticipation,
Mae
This is such a handy technique that it’s wonderful to see it surface again. For the k2p2 rib, following the directions for steps 1-8 works for the ribbing. So, yes, you’re starting with two knit stitches on the near and two knit stitches on the far needle. Watching the Kitchener video may help as well as this video on grafting garter stitch (you may have seen one in your searches).
One knit and one purl refers to the sequence of sts near the needle tip on the front (near) and back (far) needles.
It may help to test this out on two swatches with garter st and some stockinette to represent you cable. It’s well worth doing and certainly Amy will be able to better explain the technique.
Thank you Amy for this set of instructions! I made the Winding River Cowl which is double-ribbed (with some cables) and your instructions along with your modifications were exactly what I needed to complete this project. Thank you!