Grafting a Cabled Stole Top-to-Top

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This year, I made a few rectangular stoles that were knitted in two identical halves and grafted together top-to-top. This meant grafting the live stitches at the top of the two halves together in the center of the stole. Stoles often use this construction, especially when they have a decorative cast-on, an elaborate border, a directional body pattern, and/or a scalloped cast-on edge. It ensures both ends of the stole look exactly the same when draping the stole over the shoulders. But grafting the stitches in pattern top-to-top requires a bit of planning. Because the center of the stole will be very prominent when worn, you want to ensure your graft is as seamless as possible.

When you plan on grafting stitches top-to-top, keep in mind the half-stitch jog created at the point where the patterns join. Additionally, for some asymmetrical patterns, grafting creates entirely new shapes at the place where the patterns meet head-to-head. (This can be an interesting design feature if you plan for those shapes in advance, as we saw in my previous post about grafting the Lucy Westenra’s Wrap from Interweave Knits Winter 2021.) Other patterns—such as cable and diamond lace patterns—can be made to look almost continuous despite the jog (and the fact that one side is upside down in relation to the other side).

In this article, we’ll see how to use the Cable chart from the Emmer Wrap from Interweave Knits Winter 2022 as a tool to plan the grafting in order to make the cable pattern look continuous.

Grafting the Emmer Wrap

Each half of the wrap begins with a lovely diamond lace pattern. Then, the wrap transitions to a garter cable pattern worked to the center of the stole.

The top-to-top grafting needs to maintain this garter cable pattern as closely as possible.

Plan the Location of the Stole Grafting

When planning for grafting a stole top-to-top, it helps to make two or three copies of the chart for each half of the stole. Then, you can tape the copies for each half together to create two separate charts. Fold the charts at different places (making sure to fold one chart at a right-side row—a non-cabled row—and fold the other chart at a wrong-side row) and put the two charts together head-to-head, testing different configurations until you are satisfied with the results. Then cut the charts at the folds and tape the two halves together to use for reference.  

For the Cable chart used in the Emmer Wrap, there are only two non-cabled right-side rows, Rows 1 and 3. We cut the chart for the first half after Row 1, a right-side row.

And we cut the chart for the second half after Row 2, a wrong-side row.

When the chart for the second half is turned upside down and placed on top of the chart for the first half (here, I’ve removed the red repeat box so you can see the pattern more clearly), the cables of the upside-down second half still slant to the left and there are five rows of stockinette between the cable crossings. This also maintains the garter stitch pattern outside the cable, making the pattern look completely continuous.

Identifying the Rows

Next, we need to identify which two rows to use for the grafting. On the chart, they are the rows above and below the juncture between the halves, outlined in blue.

The lower row in the box will be grafted on the front needle. The upper row will be grafted on the back needle. You will graft both rows at the same time, working from right to left and alternating between the lower and upper rows. Notice that the yarnover/decrease pair at the beginning and end of the lower row has been changed to knit stitches. For some lace patterns, you can incorporate yarnovers and decreases into the grafting, but that isn’t necessary in this case. Likewise, the slip stitches on the upper row have been replaced by purl stitches.

Now that we have identified the two grafting rows, we know on which row of the Cable chart we need to end each half of the stole before grafting. The first half (which will be on the front needle when the stitches are grafted) will end with Row 6. The second half (which will be on the back needle) will end with Row 1 (working the first and last two stitches as knit stitches to avoid having yarnovers on the back needle when we graft). The grafting yarn will come from the back needle.

Reading a Grafting Chart

The portion of the chart in the blue box was used to create the grafting chart included (along with written grafting instructions) in the pattern for the Emmer Wrap.

As with the Cable chart, the symbols on the grafting chart reflect how the stitches will appear on the right side of the work, even though you will graft the stitches on the back needle with the wrong side facing (the stitches on the front needle are grafted with the right side facing).

The symbol for a grafted knit stitch is a blank square.

To differentiate, the symbol for a grafted purl stitch is a gray square.

Add the grafting steps to the symbols. The first letter in the box (reading from right to left) represents the first knitwise (K) or purlwise (P) step worked in a stitch, leaving the stitch on the needle. The second letter represents the second grafting step worked in that stitch, removing the stitch from the needle.

Back Needle and Front Needle Differences

The steps for grafting the stitches on the back needle are the opposite of the steps for the front needle for the same stitches.

The first ten grafted stitches on the front needle (FN) will create two knit stitches and eight purl stitches.

As viewed from the right side of the work, the first ten grafted stitches on the back needle (BN) will create two purl stitches and eight knit stitches.

Place the symbols for the back needle stitches on top of the symbols for the front needle stitches and offset them to the left a half stitch. This reflects the jog that will occur when you graft the stitches.

The steps will alternate between the front needle and the back needles. The arrows indicate the direction the grafting yarn takes through the stitches as you work the grafting steps.

Here is the grafting chart for the entire row, with a red box drawn around the repeated grafting sequence. The repeat box on the grafting chart also follows the jog. It begins with an “off” step and ends with an “on” step on both needles.

The swatch in this photo shows the final graft. You’d have to look closely to see the half-stitch jog in the pattern, which looks almost continuous.

Grafting the Ancestors’ Stole

Another stole in the Winter 2022 issue, the Ancestors’ Stole, uses top-to-top grafting in the center. But in this case, the grafting is worked in a diamond lace pattern.

Diamond patterns are relatively easy to graft so that the pattern appears uninterrupted. You simply hide the half-stitch jog in a place in the pattern where a change of direction naturally occurs, such as at the point of a diamond. I knit my version for my daughter in a lovely green-blue yarn, which you can see below.

We’ve provided step by step instructions for grafting both the Emmer Wrap and the Ancestors’ Stole. So if you want to make that beautiful lace stole, but the grafting makes you nervous, we’ve got you covered!

Happy Knitting,
Joni

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Explore more beautiful patterns from Interweave Knits Winter 2022!