Hello, fellow knitting peeps. Today was the first day of school for DD the Younger. She has three years left of high school. She just got her learner’s permit. Pray for us. Pray for us all.
I have a small FO to share — another Quincy Hat by Jared Flood. I made several of these last year and enjoyed making them enough to do another — it’s a great take-along project. Our knitting group is knitting hats for charity this year, so I am knitting hats.
Quincy Hat by Jared Flood in Katia Azteca (128 yds of a 197 yd skein), US Size 10 Needles
The hat is started as a long, garter stitch strip with built-in i-cord along each edge. Last year, I ran into several people who had difficulty trying to set up the grafting for the center back (I told them to go ask Jared…well, I told them and then I showed them 🙂 ).
You need to graft the first and last three sts as stockinette and the middle sts in garter stitch. In order to do this correctly, you need to reposition all the built-in i-cord sts to look like the right side of stockinette on each side. One side will look like reverse stockinette. These sts must be turned — not individually, but all three at once.
The sts appear on the needle like this:
Place all three purl side sts on a dpn and then turn the dpn counterclockwise until the RS of the stockinette sts are facing forward. Now place them back 0n the needle in this new order:
I won’t even try to show how to do garter grafting (yes, I’m a chicken &^%$)! Just make sure the center sts are set up properly (there are many tutorials out there).
The results:
There will always be a jog where the change from st st to garter takes place because you are grafting two different directions of knitting together (heads of sts being grafted to heads of sts — if that does not make sense, you are normal!).
I’m still deciding on my next bigger project…a couple of ideas are floating around so we’ll see which one lands!
PS: Rox’s comment made me re-think the above and she is correct that you are grafting in the same direction as the knitting, so there shouldn’t be a jog. The fact that there is is probably due to the built in i-cord (?), not the transition from stockinette to garter and back again. That shouldn’t cause a jog in and of itself. Maybe I’ll try it and experiment. Or maybe not. 😉
Oh, I really like the color of that hat!
Comment by Surly — September 7, 2010 @ 11:48 pm
If only I had procrastinated a little more, I had to figure out how to graft this hat just a few days ago. It’s a great hat though and it’s worth the trouble.
Comment by GinkgoKnits — September 8, 2010 @ 1:09 am
Susan, I’ve made several of these hats, too, and I also get the jog, but I’m not convinced it’s due to the pieces being knit in the opposite direction. They actually aren’t knit opposite. Because it’s a strip, you’re joining the beginning with the end which means they were worked in the *same* direction, as opposed to two ends of a scarf that get grafted together. The problem is that the stitch “heads” on one needle are actually running threads. I spent a lot of time last fall trying to work out a way to eliminate that jog (never *quite* succeeded), but I’m wondering if it has more to do with the transition from stockinette to garter? The front needle has to be worked the same all the way across: knit off, purl on, but on the back needle, stockinette is purl off and knit on, while garter is knit off purl on. I keep thinking that there has to be some way to make that transition work better, taking into account the directionality of the knitting and the running thread vs stitch head issue.
Comment by Rox — September 8, 2010 @ 8:12 am
The term “blows my mind” has finally met its match! Thanks for the tutorial, Susan. It is bound to help.
Comment by Chloe — September 8, 2010 @ 3:28 pm
Is grafting like an afterthought heel or thumb, in that you are picking up the live stitches, but you are technically half a stitch off? I’m not sure I can think it through (the brain fuzzies have struck) but that might explain the slight offset.
Comment by Needles — September 9, 2010 @ 6:40 am
I’ve always wanted to knit this hat — and now I’m extra-inspired. Thanks for the tutorial. . . although it’s kind of making my head explode. Best of luck with the school year and the driving. (Gosh, I hated it when my kids were first driving . . . and I had to be in the car with them. Yikes!)
Comment by Kym — September 9, 2010 @ 9:48 am
Bless your heart for explaining the ‘Quincy Graft’ in a blog post. I was one of the people you explained this to about a year ago – in person. I was the one with the bright blue Malabrigo worsted Quincy. It has baffled me that no one has explained turning those icord stitches around at the end of the graft but you. No one seems to mention it, even Jared. It’s a little like no one mentioning the Emperor has no clothes on.
Comment by Sue — September 9, 2010 @ 3:36 pm
Oh, and BTW, have you seen the article in Vogue Magazine Spring/Summer 2010 about using charts to map out complicated grafting? I made a note to myself to try to use that article when I grafted my next Quincy. But it might be easier to just bookmark your blog post. 😉
Comment by Sue — September 9, 2010 @ 3:49 pm
Needles is correct. When grafting stitches you will always be half a stitch off at the beginning, resulting in being a half stitch off at the end…nature of the beast kind of thing. Your hat is lovely.
Comment by Cheryl — September 15, 2010 @ 8:52 am