Happy New Year! I wanted to share the following “tips” I received via email from Sandi Wiseheart of Knitting Daily. This is a great grafting tip for all you sock lovers that love knitting socks, but like me, might not enjoy or like using the Kitchener Stitch.
Grafting On The Needles
1. Knit until the point in the sock pattern the instructions tell you to graft together the final stitches.
2. Divide the remaining stitches evenly between two double-pointed needles.
3. Hold both needles parallel in your left hand, so that the working yarn is on your right, and is coming off the rightmost stitch on the back needle.
4. Cut the working yarn to a reasonable length, say, 12″.
5. Using a third dpn, PURL the first stitch on the FRONT needle.
6. DROP the stitch off the left front needle, and pull the yarn all the way through the dropped stitch so that there is no longer a stitch on the right(working) needle.
7. KNIT the next stitch on the FRONT needle, but this time LEAVE the stitch on the left front needle; pull the yarn all the way through as before. 8. KNIT the first stitch on the BACK needle.
9. DROP the stitch off the left back needle and pull the yarn all the way through.
10. PURL the next stitch on the BACK needle.
11. LEAVE that stitch on the left back needle and pull the yarn all the way through.
Repeat Steps 5 through 11 until you get to the last two stitches; work these two stitches together as established and drop both stitches off the needles. Pull the yarn all the way through. Thread yarn onto a tapestry needle, bring yarn to inside of sock, and weave in ends, tacking down the last “ear” loops as needed. (You can pull any excess loopage to the inside to make tacking it down a bit prettier.)
2. When you are working your knits and purls, pass the working yarn under and between the two left needles, not over them.
I hope these tips help you as much as they have for me. Happy knitting and Happy New Year!
