How to Graft Knitting in Pattern

Kitchener stitch is wonderful for grafting stockinette stitch together, but what about when you want to create an almost seamless finish but your knitting isn’t in stockinette? What about garter stitch, ribbing, seed stitch, or any other pattern? Well, today I’m going to teach you how to graft knitting in pattern.

How Grafting Works

In order to graft any pattern, it’s important to understand how grafting works. Grafting is essentially manually knitting two rows of live stitches together to make one continuous piece. Some people think that when we graft, we’re making one row of knitting, but we’re actually making two. This is why kitchener stitch isn’t useful for grafting garter stitch together. You end up with either a large knit block ruining the pattern or a bunch of purl bumps.

What You Need for Grafting

What you’ll need to graft is a tapestry needle, your live stitches on the needles, and a long tail about 3-4 times as long as the piece you’re grafting in the yarn you used. Both of the pieces will need to be on their own knitting needle, with the wrong sides of the pieces together and both needle points to need to be facing the same direction. Both pieces of the knitting that’s meant to be grafted need to have the same stitch count in order to graft them.

How to Graft

There is two parts to grafting every stitch, the set up and the stitch. How to set up the stitch and how to do the stitch is dependent on what stitch and what pattern you’re going to do, but aside from the first set up and the last stitch, you’ll be working the stitch/set up as the following:

• Preform the stitch from the front needle (needle closest to you), slide that stitch off the needle
• set up for the next stitch on the front needle, leave that stitch on the needle
• complete the stitch from the back needle, remove the stitch from the needle
• set up the next stitch on the back needle, leave that stitch on the needle.

For the initial set up, you’ll just be doing the set up portions of the pattern above, setting up the stitch on the front needle, the the one on the back needle, leaving both of them on. For the last stitch, you’ll just be working the stitch portion, from front to back, removing both stitches.

Now, to graft certain stitches, you’ll be inserting the tapestry needle in specific ways, either as if you were knitting the stitch or as if you were purling the stitch. Below is the basic rule for how to set up and complete knit and purl stitches.

• Set up for knit stitches – On the front needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to purl. On the back needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to knit.
• Set up for purl stitches – On the front needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to knit. On the back needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to purl.
• Complete knit stitches – On the front needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to knit. on the back needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to purl.
• Complete purl stitches – On the front needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to purl. On the back needle, you’ll insert the tapestry needle as if to knit.

Make sure when you’re grafting, you’re always inserting the tapestry needle below the knitting needles on both the front and back needle. Otherwise you can mess up your grafting.

I realize this can be a bit confusing, so I have a video tutorial demonstrating this. In the video, I show grafting two different garter stitch sections, a seed stitch section, stockinette, and reverse stockinette so you can see these principles in action.

Quick Reference to Graft Knitting in Pattern

For quick reference, here’s the basic instructions for a few different common patterns. When grafting garter stitch, it’s important to remember that it depends on whether you need a knit or a purl on your front needle which garter pattern you’ll use.

Pattern	Pattern Instructions
Garter (k on FN)	FN k slide off, p keep on, BN k slide off, p keep on.
Garter (p on FN)	FN p slide off, k keep on, BN p slide off, k keep on.
Stockinette	FN k slide off, p keep on, BN p slide off, k keep on.
Reverse Stockinette	FN p slide off, k keep on, BN k slide off, p keep on.
Seed Stitch (starting k on FN)	FN k slide off, k keep on, BN k slide off, k keep on, FN p slide off, p keep on, BN, p slide off, p keep on.
1×1 Ribbing (k start)	FN k slide off, k keep on, BN p slide off, p keep on, FN p slide off, p keep on, BN k slide off, k keep on.
2×2 Ribbing (k start)	FN k slide off, p keep on, BN p slide off, k keep on, FN k slide off, k keep on, BN p slide off, p keep on, FN p slide off, k keep on, BN k slide off, p keep on, FN p slide off, p keep on, BN k slide off, k keep on.

The important thing to remember when grafting is that your set up always needs to be right for the next stitch, so it’s important to always be looking ahead in that pattern row.

If you have any questions or need any help, please feel free to leave a comment and I can help you out as best I can.

Happy knitting!