Kitchener Stitch - for Garter Stitch

LAD Knitting Knowledge

Kitchener Stitch – for Garter Stitch

A technique to graft live stitches together

Kitchener Stitch is a way of sewing live stitches together – so rather than casting off your knits then sewing them together, you leave the two sections live and use a tapestry needly to join them.

It’s done differently depending on the type of knitting you’re joining – this tutorial is for joining 2 garter stitch pieces

Like most techniques it can feel a bit daunting at first but it really is a lovely repetitive process that syncs in quickly and looks really effective once finished.

For the sake of this tutorial i’ve used 3 different colours so you can see all of my stitches but normally you’d work it all in the same colour then you won’t even notice the stitches (so professional babes!)

Lauren xx

Play Video

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Set Up Row

With live stitches on 2 needles and your purl bumps facing you on both:

Place your needles parallel to one another so you have a front needle and a back needle. Thread one of your tails of yarn through a tapestry needle.

Set Up Stitches: Insert your tapestry needle purlwise through the first stitch on the front needle. Leave the stitch on the needle. Now insert your tapestry needle purlwise through the first stitch on the back needle, again leaving the stitch on the needle

Step 1

Front needle: Insert the tapestry needle knitwise into the first stitch and move the stitch off the needle

Step 2

Front needle: Insert tapestry needle purlwise through next front stitch and leave on the needle.

Step 3

Back needle: Insert tapestry needle knitwise through first stitch and move it off the needle.

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Step 4

Back needle: Insert tapestry needle purlwise through the next stitch on the back needle and leave on the needle

Keep going

Repeat steps 1-4 until 2 stitches remain. Insert tapestry needle knitwise into the front stitch and move off, then insert tapestry needle purlwise into the back stitch and move off

Now you know how to do it, you could use kitchener stitch to join any garter stitch panels you choose – leave your stitches live and enjoy that seamless finish!

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