If grafting (aka Kitchener stitch) seems confusing to you, you are not alone. Out of the hundreds of questions that I’ve received over the years, many are about this way of joining two sets of live stitches with an invisible seam.
The look that grafting forms is impeccable, but fiddling with a wool needle is not a fun task. Even though I distilled this process to two very simple steps described in this tutorial, I understand how tedious it can be.
This issue bugged me a lot, and as I was experimenting with forming the same beautifully invisible seam without using a wool needle, I came up with a solution that is both easy and quite straightforward.
I am more than happy to share this solution with you in this tutorial.
If you’d rather watch every step of this method in a video tutorial:
SETUP
When you finish knitting the two pieces that you plan to join, don’t bind off stitches.
Keep each set of stitches on a separate needle. If you left the stitches on a piece of scrap yarn or a stitch holder, transfer all stitches back to a knitting needle before you start grafting.
Cut the yarn, leaving a small tail on one of the pieces and a long tail on the other piece. The long tail should be at least four times as long as the length of the future seam.
To make every step of the process easier for you to understand, I used a secure knot to attach a piece of yarn in a contrasting colour to be my yarn tail, but of course, if we want to make this seam invisible, it is best to use the yarn that the project is made of.
Align both pieces so that the knit side of the fabric is facing in and the tips of both needles are at the right-hand side of the work. The longer yarn tail should also be at the right-hand side of the work.
It can be attached to the piece at the front or the one at the back. In my case, it is attached to the swatch that is at the back.
We are not going to use a wool needle, but we do need a tool that will help us pass the yarn tail through the stitches. We can do it with an extra knitting needle or with a crochet hook.
A crochet hook makes the whole process easier and faster, but not all of us have a crochet hook on hand.
That’s why I’ll use an extra knitting needle in this tutorial. In the video tutorial, I’ll show you how to use both tools.
The size of the extra needle or the crochet hook is not important. As long as it is close to the size of the working needles, it’ll work just fine.
I’ll use an extra needle in the same size as my working needles – 10 mm (US size 15) – and I’ll use an 8 mm (L-11) crochet hook when I show you how to graft stitches with a crochet hook in the video tutorial.
Hold the aligned pieces in your left hand and an extra knitting needle or a crochet hook in your right hand.
STEP 1 – WHEN THE YARN TAIL IS HANGING AT THE BACK
1.1. Insert the extra needle from front to back into the first stitch on the front needle.
If you used a classic knitting style when you made these knitted pieces, inserting from front to back means inserting the needle into a stitch from left to right.
If you are using the Eastern knitting style, your stitches are sitting on the needle with their right legs at the back of the needle. To insert the needle from front to back, you should insert it into a stitch from right to left.
When in doubt, remember that we don’t want to twist the stitches. If you see (or feel) that the stitch is twisted, take the extra needle out and insert it into your stitch again in a way that avoids the twist.
1.2. Slip this stitch off the working needle.
1.3. Push the extra needle a bit farther so that it enters the first stitch on the back needle from front to back. The way the pieces are arranged, it means we should go into that stitch from the knit side to the purl side of the fabric.
Keep this stitch on the working needle. Don’t slip it off just yet.
1.4. Now the extra needle is right at the longer yarn tail. This is where we need it.
Wrap the tip of that needle with the yarn as we do when we knit a stitch, or in any way that you find comfortable. The direction of the wrap is not important.
1.5. Pull this yarn wrap through both stitches.
This is when a crochet hook simplifies the process. With a crochet hook, we can pull this wrap through both stitches in one clean shot.
When we use a knitting needle, it is easier (and safer) to pull this yarn wrap through one stitch first and then pull it through the other stitch.
1.6. With the needle or with your fingers, pull the yarn tail out.
1.7. Adjust the length of the strand that is now stretched between two knitted pieces. For the seam to be fully invisible, this strand should be as long as one leg of an average stitch of the fabric.
Now the tail is hanging at the front piece, and we are ready for the next step.
STEP 2 – WHEN THE YARN TAIL IS HANGING AT THE FRONT
2.1. Insert the extra needle from back to front into the first stitch on the back needle. This is the stitch we entered in step 1.3.
2.2. Slip this stitch off the working needle.
2.3. Push the extra needle a bit farther to insert it from back to front into the first stitch of the front needle.
2.4. Wrap the tip of the needle with the yarn tail as we do when we purl a stitch, or in any way you find comfortable. The direction of the wrap is not important.
2.5. Pull this wrap through both stitches. In one move, if you use a crochet hook, or in two steps if you use an extra knitting needle.
2.6. Pull the yarn all the way through, bringing the yarn tail to the back piece.
2.7. Adjust the length of the strand to make it as long as one leg of an average stitch.
That’s about it.
Repeat these two steps until you join all stitches of the front piece to the corresponding stitches of the back piece.
As you alternate steps 1 and 2, you will notice a few things that make this method easy to remember and easy to use.
1. We always start by inserting an extra needle or a crochet hook into the first stitch of the piece that doesn’t “host” the yarn tail.
2. We always enter both stitches in the same direction – front to back when we start from the piece at the front, and back to front when we start from the piece at the back.
3. We always slip the first stitch we go into off the needle and keep the second stitch on the working needle.
As for adjusting the length of the strand in steps 1.7 and 2.7, pay attention to the space between the purl ridge at the bottom of the last row of the front piece and the back piece. The seam we make with this grafting method should form a similar space between two purl ridges.
When you join all stitches, pull the yarn through the last stitch that sits on one of the knitting needles, and secure the yarn.
I say “one of the knitting needles” because you can end up with the last stitch being on the front needle or the back needle. It all depends on the number of stitches you had on your needles before you started grafting and on the location of the yarn tail at that point.
Turn the work to the right side and enjoy the impeccable look of the seam you’ve just created.
This is probably the easiest and the least confusing way to graft stitches. No fiddling with a wool needle, no guessing, and no frustration. Just a clean result with minimal effort and no special tools (if you choose not to use a crochet hook, that is…).
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