How to: Invisible Graft Double Rib

There are horrible moments in crafting when you you know you've bitten off more than you can chew, but its far too late to go back without ruining everything. About half-way through extending my jumper was one of those moments. Doing an invisible graft on a rib stitch is soooo much harder than on a plain knit or purl stitch, the wool was splitty and I couldn't find a "how to" anywhere! After much swearing, cursing and finally figuring it out, here is my "how to" for completing an graft a double or 2x2 rib.

How to graft a double rib

Set Up: Because knitting is worked in a zig-zag, right to left then turn, when matching up your knitting for an invisible graft its important that you don't break the sequence or your join won't be truly invisible. These instructions assume that the lower section finishes on the right, the graft runs from right to left and the top section begins on the left hand side.

The 2x2 rib section demonstrated starts with a knit section, if your work starts with a purl section begin at step 9 and circle back to step 1 as instructed.

When doing any kind of graft I prefer to use waste yarn to hold the stitches rather than needles. With waste yarn i find it easier to see what I'm doing and if I've made a mistake. If you prefer to use needles, use much narrower needles than the yarn requires so that you've got plenty of room to work.

Terminology: When grafting you have two sets of loops, upper and lower which become interlocked like teeth.  Upper and lower refer to the sections which are being grafted. 

Step1:  Starting with the 1st lower loop, bring the tapestry needle with the grafting yarn through the loop from the back of the work to the front.

Step 2: Now take it through the 1st upper loop going from the front of the work to the back.

Step 3: Through the 2nd upper loop from the back to the front.

Step 4: Back through the 1st lower loop, front to back.

Step 5: Through the 2nd lower loop back to front.

Step 6: Back through the 2nd upper loop front to back

Step 7: Through the 3rd upper loop back to front.

Step 8:  Back through the 2nd lower loop front to back.

Step 9:  Through the 3rd lower loop front to back

Step 10: Back through the 3rd upper loop back to front.

Step 11: Through the 4th upper loop front to back.

Step 12  Back through the 3rd lower loop back to front

Step 13: Though the 4th lower loop front to back

Step 14: Back through the 4th upper loop back to front.

Step 15: Through the 5th upper loop front to back.

Step 16: Back through the 4th lower loop back to front

Repeat from step 1:

In Pictures:

Step 1

Steps 2 and 3

Steps 4 and 5

Step 9

Step 11

Step 16

 

Tah Dah!

Additions and Errata

As promised here is a picture of the newly completed Beach Hat! The brim is very floppy, but the pattern has worked out well and the linen yarn is fantastic. Now, I just need another beach holiday to wear it!

In between my next projects, I’ve also decided to lengthen the blue cable jumper. Because the cables pull the ribs in, the jumper comes up shorter than the yellow version with the plain ribs. As most of my trousers finish fairly low on my hips this does leave a bit of a gap. The tricky bit is going to be matching in the cable!

As you can see from the cable chart below, the pattern begins with two plain rows, with row 2 a repeat of row 10, this be the row that is grafted so I need to end my extension at row nine and then count back.

I’ll also need to unpick the current row 1 so that the pattern isn’t elongated. This means that the back extension piece will need to be 1 row shorter than the front so that the two are same total length when grafted.

So the plan is as follows:

Back: knit 16 rows of 112 stitches decreasing 2 stitches at either end on row 16.  The extra two stitches won’t alter the shape too much, but will hopefully add a little extra width so the jumper isn’t stretching too much over my hips (causing it to ride up).

Front: Knit 17 rows of 113 in patt, decreasing 2 stitches at either end on row 16. The front has an extra stitch in order to centralise the cable pattern.

To graft back: Unpick the cast on row securing row 1 stitches on spare yarn. Using a tapestry needle use an invisible graft to join the two pieces.

To graft front: Unpick the cast on row and row 1 securing row 2 stitches on spare yarn This will cancel out the extra plain row at the start of the cable pattern. Using tapestry needle use an invisible graft to join the two pieces.

Use mattress stitch to join the side seams.

Getting Shirty

Today I've been waiting in for the new washing machine to arrive and taken the opportunity to start work on the first of two blue polycotton shirts. I've been thinking about these shirts since the article on the come-back of the silk shirts in January Vogue.  I started day dreaming in silk, but then acknowledged that the reality of washing, wearing and inevitable staining means that it would spend 98% of its life in the laundry basket waiting to be handwashed. My mum suggested polycotton, leant me her Simplicity - Design a Blouse pattern (9210, now sadly discontinued) and pointed me in the direction of Fabrix in Lancaster.

I wanted to include lace in my design, and ran through a series of options in my sketchbook.  I finally settled on a pale blue lace collar and cuffs overlaid on the dark blue cotton. For the second shirt which is a paler blue I'm also going to overlay a lace back. Amazingly the pattern provides instructions for adding lace overlays to the collar and cuffs, unfortunately its still a sewing pattern and therefore prefers to provide rather vague instructions in two sentences or less. Initially everything went quite well.

Then I spent FOUR HOURS sewing the collar & facing...and now I'm not sure that it looks how I wanted. I have enough materials to undo it all, start again and make a longer collar that goes all the way to the edge of the neckline, and now that I know how it works it shouldn't take four hours to do it again...So I'm having a think about it for a few days. Certainly until I've recovered my patience. In the meantime I'll start on the sleeves, but not today.

Thinking about hats and stripes

I've just got back from holiday in Portugal, the weather was lovely and the beach was a minute away! I took my sketchbook with me, and this month's copy of Vogue and was hoping for a bit of inspiration.

According to Vogue this summer is all about colour blocks, breton stripes and pale frilly things. I am quite looking forward to sewing some colour block shirts. I don't tend to wear stripes so had originally dissmissed these out of hand, but then I thought of knitting a stripped beach shawl. I imagine it in broad blue and white stripes in mercarised cotton, the blue stripes are plain but the white stripes could be lacy. Then I thought about knitting it as a hat...!

I love sunhats and recently found a pattern for a knitted sunhat called Windandsea from Kristi Porter's Knitting in the Sun. I've resized the pattern from double knit to 4 ply and have dug out a ball of Twilley's flaxen. The hat uses a decrease at eight points in the circumference every other row and I was worried that I've get bored so I've also added in a lily of the valley motif from Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia: Techniques and Traditions.  So far it looks a little like this:

 

I'm in two minds about how I feel about the flaxen, At the moment it has a lot of long fibres that are a bit straw-like, but I'm hoping it will wash and block well. I'll keep you updated.

I'm also imagining various incarnations of stripey sunhats, occasionally straying towards handbags and wishing I knew a bit more about how to design lace knitting. So I'm off to do some more research and more sketching, and probably a bit of swatching as well.

TTFN

Elle Stretch Jumper

This jumper has been a long time in the making, and is the first pattern that I've customised by adding detail rather than simply re-sizing. Okay, its not a massive customisation, and the reason that it took so long was because I kept getting bored and knitting something else, but that just makes the fact that I've FINISHED it even more pleasing.

The pattern is Elle stretch 6800 now discontinued along with the yarn. I first knit the jumper in yellow and cream a couple of years ago. I found it a little boring to knit, but loved the jumper so much that I bought spare yarn from ebay before it disapeared. Then, last autumn I bought a gorgeous jumper in Jane Norman with cabling up the front and decided that this was what my stretch jumper needed! 

I ummed and aahed a bit about just how much cabling to include, but in the end decided to keep it simple. I replaced the centre ribs with a cable pattern from a stitch sampler and did some rough calculations on whether there would still be sufficient stretch to fit.  I calculated there would be, but was fully prepared to finish it, discover it was too tight afterall and then have to rip that section out and re-knit with a re-design. Luckily my maths held!

Welcome to Alicia makes...

Hello! I'm Alicia, I live in east lancashire and I like to make things. Finishing things is harder becasue the next idea is always more exciting so I usually have two or more projects on the go at any one time, and about three or four ideas for what to make next. Over the years I've dabbled in drawing and painting, silk painting, dress making, jewellry making, cross-stitch, origami and pretty much any other craft that has come within fifty feet of me. Recently, I've found my raison d'etre in knitting, but I still like to have a go a bit of weaving on the side...

I decided to start this blog to keep track of various projects, take pictures of stuff and generally record how I've gone about things. I hope you find it interesting.