|
 In
my article, "The Ins and Outs of
Grafting," which recently appeared in the premiere issue of knit.wear magazine, I mentioned the fact that, when trying to determine how to
fit the grafting into the row repeats of a stitch pattern, you should allow for
two pattern rows, instead of just one. I'd like to talk a little more about that
here. (Note: In the article, I described both top-to-top and top-to-bottom
grafting, but for now, I'm going to limit the discussion to top-to-bottom
grafting, which is very different from top-to-top grafting. So for the moment, put aside what you know about grafting the toe of a sock!)
But
first, here's a short quiz:
You've
designed an infinity cowl that will be joined end-to-end. You want the pattern
to continue around the entire circumference of the cowl, uninterrupted by a
seam, so your plan is to cast on using a provisional cast-on and graft the live
stitches to the cast-on stitches. Your stitch pattern has a 10-row repeat. You
start with Row 1 of the pattern after the provisional cast-on, then repeat
Rows1-10 until the cowl is the right length. In order for the pattern rows to
match up perfectly when you graft the stitches together, you will need to do
which of the following:
A) End with
Row 9 of the pattern and graft Row 10.
B) End with
Row 8 of the pattern and graft Row 9.
If
you answered A, you are probably in the majority. It does seem like the logical
choice. After all, since the grafted row is only one row, it follows that you'd
end one row shy of a full repeat before grafting the stitches together. The
correct answer, however, is B. You should end with Row 8 of the pattern (two
rows short of a complete repeat) and graft Row 9.
But
if you start with Row 1 of the pattern after the provisional cast-on and end
with Row 8 before grafting Row 9, won't you have a gap in the pattern where Row
10 should be? No, there won't be a gap because Row 10 already exists, albeit in
an "unfinished" state, in the provisional cast-on stitches. The row is
unfinished because the loops that are secured by the waste yarn aren't attached
to another row of knitting, so are neither knit stitches nor purl stitches (and
won't be until the grafting yarn is drawn through them). You could say that Row
10 is a pattern row "in-waiting."
During
the knitting process, loops of yarn are drawn through other loops to create a
new row of stitches. If you look closely at the place where the two rows intersect,
you can see that the top of the loops of the lower row wrap around both "legs"
of the loops from the upper row. If the stitches of the new row are knit
stitches, the top of the loops from the row below will disappear behind the
legs of the new loops (the two legs of the old loop form the "V" of a
knit stitch); if the new stitches are purl stitches, the top of the loops from
the lower row will be in front of the two legs of the new stitches (the top of
the old loop forms the "bump" or "ridge" of a purl stitch). As we can see, it
is the relationship between the two rows of loops that determines whether the
new stitches are knit or purl stitches.
 When
live loops on the front needle are grafted to live loops on the back needle, a
pattern row is created when the grafting yarn is drawn through the loops on the
front needle. At the same time, a separate pattern row is created by drawing
yarn through the loops on the back needle.
In
top-to-bottom grafting, the tops of the stitches on the front needle are joined
to the bottoms of the stitches on the back needle (which are the running
threads between the provisional cast-on stitches). It is the running threads of
the cast-on stitches that are placed onto the back needle in preparation for
grafting.
When
it comes to grafting in a pattern that contains both knit and purl stitches, top-to-bottom grafting has a distinct advantage
over top-to-top grafting: the stitches of the grafted pattern
will line up perfectly with the stitches of the rest of the pattern. This is
because the grafted row is no different than any row in a piece that has
been worked from the cast-on row up to the bound-off row (in top-to-top grafting, there will be a half-stitch jog in the pattern because one of
the pieces being grafted is upside-down).
In
top-to-bottom grafting, the grafted stitches are an exact replica of stitches created
when loops are drawn through other loops with a knitting needle. Because of
this, the steps required to graft each stitch should match the vertical alignment of the
pattern.
Look
closely at a single stitch in the middle of several rows of Stockinette stitch
and follow the path the yarn takes through the loops above and below it. You
will see that there are four places where the yarn passes through another loop:
first it goes through a loop in the row below, then it travels upward at a
diagonal and passes through a loop in the row above (this loop is upside down
and not directly above the stitch, but a half stitch to the right of it), then the yarn
moves to the left horizontally where it passes through another upside-down
loop (this one a half stitch to the left), then moves downward at a diagonal and passes through the same loop in the
row below that it passed through the first time. Each stitch has the same four anchor points: two below in one loop and two above in a half-loop each.
 In
top-to-bottom grafting, a single grafted stitch follows the same path:
- The tapestry needle is inserted into a loop on the
front needle, the yarn is drawn through and the stitch remains on the front
needle.
- The tapestry needle is inserted into a loop on the back
needle and the stitch is removed onto the tapestry needle, but the yarn
isn't drawn through until the next step.
- The tapestry needle is inserted into the next loop on
the back needle, the yarn is drawn through and the stitch remains on the
back needle.
- The tapestry needle is inserted into the same loop on
the front needle as before and the stitch is removed onto the tapestry
needle, but the yarn isn't drawn through until the next step.
These
four steps are repeated for each grafted stitch. The direction in which the
tapestry needle is inserted into a stitch on the knitting needle at any given
time will depend on the pattern being grafted. To graft a
knit stitch on the front needle, insert the tapestry needle through the loop
purlwise in Step 1 and knitwise in Step 4. To graft a knit stitch on the back
needle, insert the tapestry needle through the loop purlwise in Step 2 and
knitwise in Step 3. To graft a purl stitch on the front needle, insert the
tapestry needle through the loop knitwise in Step 1 and purlwise in Step 4. To
graft a purl stitch on the back needle, insert the tapestry needle through the
loop knitwise in Step 2 and purlwise in Step 3.
Since
the grafting conforms to the structure of each stitch, it is possible to use
the stitch charts from the pattern as a guide to the sequence of steps. Simply
pick two rows of the chart and use the lower row for the front needle graft and
the upper row for the back needle graft. Each knit stitch on the lower row of
the chart will represent a knitwise graft on the front needle (purlwise, then
knitwise into one loop), while each knit stitch on the upper row will represent
a knitwise graft on the back needle (purlwise through one loop, then knitwise through the next loop to the left). For purl grafts, the
knitwise and purlwise steps are reversed.
In
the following swatches, I show how various patterns can be grafted using
charts. For  each swatch, I used a provisional cast-on and worked a few inches
in the pattern, beginning with a wrong-side row, then I bound off the stitches. I like to start with a
wrong-side row above the provisional cast-on so that I can use the cast-on tail
for the grafting (I leave it long, about four times the width of the piece). For
the portion of the swatch below the grafted row, I cast on regularly, worked a
few rows, and ended two rows before where I started the pattern above the cast-on. Before I removed the waste yarn from the provisional cast-on in
preparation for grafting, I picked up an extra stitch at the corner (the
cast-on tail side) so that I had one more stitch on the back needle than on the
front needle. I did this because I wanted a half-loop at each side of the back
needle and only wanted the grafting yarn to go through those stitches one time,
instead of two. This matches the structure of the knitted fabric as it's worked
from the cast-on row up to the bound-off edge.
The
arrows in the charts show the path the pink grafting yarn takes through the
loops on the front and back needles. The letters represent the knitwise (k) or
purlwise (p) direction the yarn takes through each loop to create knit and purl stitches. The white boxes represent knit stitches (as viewed from the right-side of the work) and the gray boxes (and boxes with dots) represent purl stitches (as viewed from the right-side).
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