Hello! I knit Jacqueline Cieslak’s Rift tee in The Fiber Cos Luma. (Side note: I highly recommend the yarn! It’s fantastic! 50% merino, 25% cotton, 15% linen and 10% silk) The tee is knit bottom up and in the round. It was too big so I washed and dried it in a machine. It shrank but fits like a dream and it’s soft, drapey and not too warm. But it’s a few inches too short. That’s fine - it was too short before I washed it and I wasn’t going to wear it at that length anyway! If you’re not familiar, the Rift’s body is stockinette with 9 twisted 1x1 rib stitches that form a nice little detail down each side. So to lengthen it I have removed the ribbing plus a couple rounds above the ribbing by snipping a stitch and pulling out the yarn. From there I continued knitting bottom-up from the lower piece. Now I need to graft the lower piece back to the main body. I’m comfortable with kitchenering but I’m not having much luck finding how to graft the twisted ribbing. I found an article with pictures on the Interweave website (located here) which is helpful but I could use an additional resource. Thanks for any help!
Pretty tee with lovely detail in the twisted stitches.
It looks like you’ve found a brilliant tutorial for just the situation that you have. It explains the theory and offers two methods to work the graft with step by step directions for one of them. Definitely take the suggestion to work a swatch to test this out.
I think the Interweave instructions you found look good too.
When I did this, I think I twisted the stitches that needed to be twisted between my fingers as I went along. Then I processed them as though they were a normal plain stitch graft. Not very efficient. I was using a thicker yarn so it wasn’t too hard to grab the stitches, but it took ages.
If you thread the round onto scrap yarn, put the sewing needle through the back of the loop for the twisted stitches, just as you did with your knitting needle. Then, when you are about to graft them, pinch at the base between your thumb and forefinger so they sit flat.