Grafting Lace Borders for Dummies

Before I started the Spider King edging, I spent hours reading all about how The Experts Did It. Line up bumps, Line up Vs. Go up through the first stitch, down through the fourth one on the third needle purlwise, being careful to maintain an even tension, clean your glasses, turn off karaoke machines, and so on.

Deciding to follow one particularly detailed explanation, I carefully knit a full repeat in a different-colored waste yarn, then knit another row in a differently colored waste yarn. At the end. I spent 20 hours trying to figure out what the heck all those waste yarns were supposed to be grafted to and in what order. Ultimately, knitting the first repeat was not only a waste of time and waste of waste yarn, but turned out to be so confusing that I finally just snipped it out.

I put everything aside and spent some time with more waste yarn in a different room than the original waste yarns, shawl, needles, glasses cleaners, and Xanax.


Pithy Directions
1. When you are ready to begin the edging, chose a simple row as the ending row and knitted it first with waste yarn.
2. Knit the border and then knit last row again with waste yarn. Using a different color from the first waste yarn will make step 3 easier.
3. Follow the path of the waste yarns with a blunt needle threaded with a nice, long length of the working yarn.

Frothy Directions
1. Inspect your edging repeat and choose the simplest row. In my case, every other row was plain knit, so selection was a no-brainer. My border had peaks and valleys. I chose the knit row at the bottom of the valley.

2. This row is both the starting row and your ending row.

So:

1. Take a piece of waste yarn in a contrasting color and work the chosen row. You are knitting the last row of the border first, yes you are.

2. Then continue knitting your border with your real yarn.

3. Time passes. For some of us, it's a lot of time.

4. When you get to the end, knit the last row in a contrasting color waste yarn. Using a different color from the first row will be helpful.

5. You will notice that, having finished the shawl, the edging is still connected to the yarn ball.

6. Sorry, but you will have to break the connection--but leave yourself a nice long piece to do the graft.

7. Thread the end into a blunt needle.

8. Give the shawl and the threaded needle to a Boy/Girl Scout who can follow a map.

9. Explain that he or she needs to follow the path of the waste yarns. If the working yarn is on the bottom needle, then the working yarn must go up to the other needle, follow the path of the upper waste yarn as it meanders through the live stitches, until the waste yarn starts heading back down to the knitting needle.

At that point, the working yarn moves back to the bottom needle and follows the waste yarn until it heads back up to its knitting needle.

It doesn't matter which side you start on, or whether the shawl is facing up or down. There are no bumps or v's to line up. You don't need to understand knitwise or purlwise. You don't need to drop stitches from needle. You can go get a cold drink and come back when the Scout is finished.

10. Remove the knitting needles, slide out the waste yarn, and adjust the tension of the grafting yarn if necessary.

Don't forget to give the Scout a cookie.