What Is Grafting in Knitting?
Grafting is a technique for joining two sets of live (unbound) stitches together with a sewn seam that mimics a row of knitting, so the join is invisible rather than looking like a seam. The most common form of grafting is Kitchener stitch, traditionally used to close the toe of a sock, but the same basic principle can be used anywhere you need to join two live edges seamlessly — including ribbing.
Because grafting works stitch by stitch with a tapestry needle and yarn rather than knitting the stitches off the needles, it can produce a join with much more stretch and a much less visible seam than binding off and sewing two edges together.
Why Ribbing Is Different to Graft
Grafting plain stockinette stitch is relatively straightforward, since every stitch on both needles is a knit stitch and the path the yarn takes is consistent all the way across. Ribbing complicates this because it’s made up of alternating knit and purl columns, and each type of column needs to be grafted in a way that keeps it looking like a knit stitch or a purl stitch once the seam is finished.
In practice, this means you can’t just work one continuous Kitchener path across a ribbed edge the way you would on stockinette. You need to treat each column according to whether it’s a knit column or a purl column at that point in the rib pattern, so the finished graft reads as an unbroken continuation of the ribbing rather than a flat stockinette band interrupting it.
Before You Start Grafting Ribbing
A few things make grafting ribbing easier to get right:
- Work with a yarn tail long enough to complete the whole graft, roughly three to four times the width of the section you’re joining, so you don’t run out partway through.
- Thread a blunt tapestry needle with your working yarn.
- Make sure both sets of live stitches are on holders or needles in the same order, so the columns you’re grafting actually line up with each other (knit column to knit column, purl column to purl column).
- Lay the two pieces with wrong sides together or edge to edge, depending on your pattern’s instructions, so you can see both rows of live stitches clearly.
How to Graft Ribbing Step by Step
Setting Up Your Stitches
Hold or arrange the two live edges so the stitches on the front needle and back needle correspond to the same column of ribbing — for example, if the front piece starts with a knit column, the back piece’s first stitch should also belong to a knit column. This alignment is what keeps the ribbing pattern continuous across the graft.
Working the Knit Columns
For stitches that fall on a knit column, graft them the way you would for a standard Kitchener stitch over stockinette: bring the needle through the front stitch as if to knit, then through the corresponding back stitch as if to purl, following the usual Kitchener path for that pair of stitches.
Working the Purl Columns
For stitches that fall on a purl column, reverse the approach: work the front stitch as if to purl and the back stitch as if to knit. This keeps the purl bumps sitting where they should within the rib pattern instead of flattening out into stockinette at the seam.
Throughout, work slowly and check your stitch pattern against the ribbing on either side of the graft as you go, since it’s much easier to catch a column that’s out of step early than to unpick a finished graft later.
Common Mistakes When Grafting Ribbing
- Losing track of which column you’re on. It’s easy to lose count partway through a long rib graft. Pause periodically and compare the stitches you’ve just grafted to the ribbing pattern on either side.
- Misaligned stitch counts. If one side has a different number of stitches per rib repeat than the other, the columns won’t line up no matter how carefully you work. Double-check stitch counts before you begin.
- Pulling the graft too tight. A rib graft that’s cinched too tightly will pucker and look different from the rest of the ribbing. Keep tension consistent with the surrounding fabric rather than pulling each stitch snug.
- Working the wrong stitch type for a column. Mixing up knit-column and purl-column instructions is the most common cause of a graft that looks “off” even when the tension is fine.
After Grafting: Blocking and Checking Your Seam
Once the graft is complete, weave in the tail and give the seam a light press with your fingers to even out the stitches. A gentle blocking pass can also help settle a rib graft into the surrounding fabric — see our guide to wet blocking knitting for the general soak-and-pin process. Before blocking, it’s worth checking the graft against the rest of your project’s edges; if you used a slipped-stitch or garter edge elsewhere in the piece, our guide to the best selvedge stitch for seaming covers how those edges behave once joined.
FAQ
Is grafting ribbing harder than grafting stockinette? It generally takes more attention, since you have to work knit columns and purl columns differently rather than following one continuous path across the row. The underlying technique — Kitchener stitch — is the same.
Do both pieces need the same rib pattern to graft together? Yes. For the graft to look continuous, both sets of live stitches should have matching rib patterns and matching stitch counts per repeat, so the columns line up.
Can I graft ribbing if I’m not confident with Kitchener stitch yet? It can help to practice standard Kitchener stitch on a stockinette swatch first, so you’re comfortable with the basic front-to-back path before adding the extra step of switching between knit-column and purl-column instructions.