Grafting lace is not as scary as it sounds, but it does take a bit of concentration. This photo tutorial is related to the Litha Shawl pattern, and grafts only 15 stitches, so may provide a brief useful view of the process. The knitted piece being grafted here is on a garter ground, which simplifies the graft to a large extent. This tutorial is not intended as a tutorial for all lace grafting, only as it relates to this particular shawl.
Grafting is adding in a row of stitches in order to join two sets of stitches seamlessly. Here, I am adding the wrong side row between two right side rows; since the wrong side in this pattern is knitted (the ground for this lace is garter stitch) with just two purled stitches, it is mostly a Ridge-High Garter graft. See Woolly Wormhead’s tutorial for a fuller explanation of this technique.
I find a lifeline on both sets of stitches most helpful, and here is no exception. I used very fine linen yarn in a contrasting colour, but sewing thread would do just as well.
I first arrange my two sets of stitches on two needles, in this case DPNs. The red needle holds the 15 Left Hand Edge stitches, and the gold needle the 14 Lower Edge stitches. The yarn is coming from the back needle. Keep your stitches relaxed, don’t overtighten.
Setup
Begin with the Front stitch, take the tapestry needle through the stitch from front to back knitwise and leave the stitch on the needle.
Back stitch, take the yarn through the stitch purlwise, and drop the stitch from the needle. You now have 14 pairs of stitches on the needles.
Back stitch, take the yarn through the stitch knitwise and leave on the needle.
Garter Grafting
Having evened up the number of stitches on the two needles, work the rest of the garter stitches as follows:
- Front purlwise off
- Front knitwise on
- Back purlwise off
- Back knitwise on
Work these four steps until you have 4 pairs of stitches remaining.
In this pattern the last four stitches we are trying to replicate are: knit 1 purl2, knit 1. Therefore we have to work a hybrid garter-stocking stitch graft. The steps are:
- Front purlwise off
- Front purlwise on
- Back purlwise off
- Back knitwise on
- Front knitwise off
- Front purlwise on
- Back purlwise off
- Back knitwise on
- Front knitwise off
- Front purlwise on
- Back purlwise off
- Back knitwise on
- Front purlwise off
- Back purlwise off
