Lace Grafting…Made EASY? You bet!

I love lace. Seventy-five percent of what I knit is lace or has knitted lace somewhere in it. I do NOT like grafting, however. Work 34-row repeats of two-sided lace? Challenge accepted! Work a four-step repeat to graft sock toes? I’d rather have my scalp peeled off. Something about the process locks my brain to where I can’t count past three.

When our Senior Project Editor, Joni Coniglio, approached me about a lace grafting course, I was skeptical. Lace grafting seemed complicated, over-the-top, and a tool that would see little use. Boy was I wrong. If you add a lace edging to something, things can get a little weird when it’s time to join the edges. Maybe you’ve sewn them together, or maybe you’ve tried Kitchener to join the ends. Either way, you end up with a wonky seam at the corner of that baby blanket, or a big fugly join that breaks up that lovely lace cowl.

Joni is known for her grafting techniques and has already filmed several deep dives into grafting. Lace Grafting Made Easy, her latest online workshop, really lives up to the promise of its title. Joni teaches one-sided lace, where you get a break every other row. And she teaches what she calls top-to-bottom lace, where the lace flows in one direction only. Grafting top-to-bottom means your lace design lines up perfectly, with no weird and irritating half-stitch jog that throws everything off. Grafting in this manner creates perfectly even columns of stitches, and makes your graft totally invisible. Really.

Many grafting instructions call for holding the pieces to be grafted on your front and back needles while you graft, which requires knitting-hand-yoga moves and has always felt awkward and wrong to me. Joni lays both pieces flat on a table in front of her. This alone makes things so much easier. You can see the lace stitches form as you graft them!

As for making those stitches, all you need is a tapestry needle, yarn, and her expert instructions. The workshop comes with instructions and diagrams for creating 16 different stitches, from simple knit to centered double decreases. Start by practicing on simple stockinette to get a feel for the process, then move on to three sample lace swatches. Best of all, in addition to the charts, diagrams, and text instructions, you get three cowl patterns that let you practice your new grafting skills. 

If you are a lace knitter, Lace Grafting Made Easy is an absolutely essential tool. After all, why go to all that work and have your lace project look anything less than perfect?

Never stop learning.

Allison

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