All you need to know about Kitchener stitch aka grafting
Disclaimer: the title of this post may be misleading. Just saying...
Kitchener stitch is a bind-off technique. It is often used to bind-off the toes of socks, the tips of mittens and the shoulders of sweaters, because it allows for two pieces of knitted fabric to be bound off seamlessly. In other words, Kitchener stitch is to bind-off what provisional cast-on is to cast-on.
First things first, grafting and Kitchener stitch are not exactly the same thing. In knitting, grafting means joining two fabrics in such away that the join is invisible. You can graft two sides together (selvage-to-selvage grafting), graft a selvage to an end of the fabric (this will, of course, be visible), and graft two ends together. Kitchener stitch achieves the latter.
Second things second, the historical background. Contrary to what most people think, Lord Kitchener did not invent this stitch. He probably did not even know how to knit. Neither did he claim its authorship or order someone else to invent it for him. Kitchener stitch was in use long before Lord Kitchener brought about the creation and distribution of knitting patterns as part of the war effort. The idea was that while men fought in the fronts, women back at home would occupy themselves with knitting socks, mittens, hats and other garments that they donated to the army. These would hopefully contribute to keeping men warm and healthy at the front. These also played an important role in war propaganda, since women engaged in the war effort were less likely to be critical of it. And women do tend to be critical of wars, for obvious reasons. Apparently many amateur knitters learned this technique from "Kitchener's" patterns and they started calling it the Kitchener stitch. And knitting history was made.
Finally, let us come back to the important stuff, the Kitchener stitch itself. As mentioned before, it is a type of bind-off, so it is worked exclusively on live stitches. Usually, Kitchener stitch refers to the stockinette one, that is, the one that emulates a row of stockinette stitch, but you can apply it to any knit-purl stitch pattern by changing the sequence. There are plenty of video and text online tutorials that teach how to work Kitchener stitch for the more common patterns, such as stockinette, garter and ribbing (see videos below). But what to do if you have a non-standard pattern? Well, first you must understand that what Kitchener stitch does is to replicate one row of stitches. So the perfect Kitchener stitch is only possible if the two pieces to join are exactly one row away from being joined correctly. This is not always possible and, if that is the case, stockinette Kitchener stitch is probably the best solution, because that will at least make a rather discrete row. Second, you must study your stitches. To help you with that task, techknitting has written a very detailed blog post which does just that. Although, the instructions in that post are given for the standard aforementioned stitches, you can easily adapt them if you understand them, which will allow you to easily apply it to other patterns, like for example seed stitch.
For the sake of completion, the aforementioned post by techknitting is part of a series on Kitchener stitch that includes posts on improving the look of Kitchener stitch in ribbing and including shaping. The latter avoids the problem of "donkey ears" on sock toes and can also be used to graft two pieces with a different number of stitches. An additional note: an easier way to avoid the "donkey ears" in socks is to only pass the yarn through the first and the last stitches once (slip the stitch out of the needle the first time you pass the needle through it and proceed as usual). This effectively creates a half-stitch.
One last word of advice. Even though a seamless join such as provided by Kitchener stitch seems to be ideal, this is not always the case. You can and should use Kitchener stitch for socks, mittens and other small items without a problem. But if the join must hold considerable weight, such as the shoulders of a sweater, a real seam may provide the necessary support a lot better and be necessary to make sure the sweater keeps its shape neatly. That said and as mentioned at the beginning of this post, Kitchener stitch is often used precisely for binding off sweaters at the shoulders. So, here again you have the question of preference. I say here again, because the same argument holds for knitting in the round versus knitting flat and then seaming the piece together. The first is easier and in principle more attractive, but the seams are sturdier and in the long run, with use, they will keep the sweater in better shape.
And to end this post, here are some useful video tutorials.
The sockinette Kitchener stitch:
The garter Kitchener stitch:
Addendum: Good news! Knitty magazine has just published a set of video tutorials on Kitchener stitch for stockinette, reverse stockinette and garter.
Kitchener stitch is a bind-off technique. It is often used to bind-off the toes of socks, the tips of mittens and the shoulders of sweaters, because it allows for two pieces of knitted fabric to be bound off seamlessly. In other words, Kitchener stitch is to bind-off what provisional cast-on is to cast-on.
First things first, grafting and Kitchener stitch are not exactly the same thing. In knitting, grafting means joining two fabrics in such away that the join is invisible. You can graft two sides together (selvage-to-selvage grafting), graft a selvage to an end of the fabric (this will, of course, be visible), and graft two ends together. Kitchener stitch achieves the latter.
Second things second, the historical background. Contrary to what most people think, Lord Kitchener did not invent this stitch. He probably did not even know how to knit. Neither did he claim its authorship or order someone else to invent it for him. Kitchener stitch was in use long before Lord Kitchener brought about the creation and distribution of knitting patterns as part of the war effort. The idea was that while men fought in the fronts, women back at home would occupy themselves with knitting socks, mittens, hats and other garments that they donated to the army. These would hopefully contribute to keeping men warm and healthy at the front. These also played an important role in war propaganda, since women engaged in the war effort were less likely to be critical of it. And women do tend to be critical of wars, for obvious reasons. Apparently many amateur knitters learned this technique from "Kitchener's" patterns and they started calling it the Kitchener stitch. And knitting history was made.
Finally, let us come back to the important stuff, the Kitchener stitch itself. As mentioned before, it is a type of bind-off, so it is worked exclusively on live stitches. Usually, Kitchener stitch refers to the stockinette one, that is, the one that emulates a row of stockinette stitch, but you can apply it to any knit-purl stitch pattern by changing the sequence. There are plenty of video and text online tutorials that teach how to work Kitchener stitch for the more common patterns, such as stockinette, garter and ribbing (see videos below). But what to do if you have a non-standard pattern? Well, first you must understand that what Kitchener stitch does is to replicate one row of stitches. So the perfect Kitchener stitch is only possible if the two pieces to join are exactly one row away from being joined correctly. This is not always possible and, if that is the case, stockinette Kitchener stitch is probably the best solution, because that will at least make a rather discrete row. Second, you must study your stitches. To help you with that task, techknitting has written a very detailed blog post which does just that. Although, the instructions in that post are given for the standard aforementioned stitches, you can easily adapt them if you understand them, which will allow you to easily apply it to other patterns, like for example seed stitch.
For the sake of completion, the aforementioned post by techknitting is part of a series on Kitchener stitch that includes posts on improving the look of Kitchener stitch in ribbing and including shaping. The latter avoids the problem of "donkey ears" on sock toes and can also be used to graft two pieces with a different number of stitches. An additional note: an easier way to avoid the "donkey ears" in socks is to only pass the yarn through the first and the last stitches once (slip the stitch out of the needle the first time you pass the needle through it and proceed as usual). This effectively creates a half-stitch.
One last word of advice. Even though a seamless join such as provided by Kitchener stitch seems to be ideal, this is not always the case. You can and should use Kitchener stitch for socks, mittens and other small items without a problem. But if the join must hold considerable weight, such as the shoulders of a sweater, a real seam may provide the necessary support a lot better and be necessary to make sure the sweater keeps its shape neatly. That said and as mentioned at the beginning of this post, Kitchener stitch is often used precisely for binding off sweaters at the shoulders. So, here again you have the question of preference. I say here again, because the same argument holds for knitting in the round versus knitting flat and then seaming the piece together. The first is easier and in principle more attractive, but the seams are sturdier and in the long run, with use, they will keep the sweater in better shape.
And to end this post, here are some useful video tutorials.
The sockinette Kitchener stitch:
The garter Kitchener stitch:
Addendum: Good news! Knitty magazine has just published a set of video tutorials on Kitchener stitch for stockinette, reverse stockinette and garter.
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