Jeanne from Jimmy Beans Wool demonstrates how to do the kitchener stitch. We hope you enjoy it!
Fun Fact: Lord Kitchener (he was a British military hero of the Boer War and World War I) wanted a better sock that didn't have seams on the tops of the toes so that his soldiers wouldn't get sores while they where in the trenches. So he worked to design a new sock and while doing so he invented this new grafting technique for the toes which makes a smooth invisible graft -- that grafting technique was later named the Kitchener Stitch!
Leave a long tail when you have finished knitting. Have your live stitches to be joined separated equally on two needles. Hold the two needles parallel with each other with the wrong sides together and the tail coming from the needle in the back with the needle points pointing to the right. Thread a darning needle with the tail.
- Step 1: Insert needle into the first stitch on the front needle as if to knit, pull yarn through and slip the first stitch off the needle.
- Step 2: In the second stitch on the front needle insert the darning needle as if to purl and pull the yarn through but don't drop the stitch off the needle.
- Step 3: Insert the darning needle into the first stitch on the back needle as if to purl, pull yarn through and slip the stitch off the needle.
- Step 4: Insert the darning needle into the second stitch on the back needle as if to knit, pull yarn through but don't slip the stitch off.
- Repeat steps 1-4 until all stitches are slipped off of the needles. Congrats, you just grafted your first piece of knitting using the Kitchener Stitch!
- Remember to snug your yarn up as you sew this so that your stitches are nice and tight.
- Pay attention to where your yarn is and make sure it doesn't get unnecessarily wrapped around the front or the back needles.
Posted by Laura of Jimmy Beans Wool
