Kitchener Stitch Revisited

Good Morning!

Cloudy and rainy here in NY again...with Hurricane Deb pounding up the coast.  I hope she calms down a bit by the time she reaches New York.  We will just have to wait and see.

I had a great class on Saturday.  It is a drop in class that Mary, the shop owner of yarnandteashop.com, calls my Drop-In Knit Fix class.  Two students came who needed help with Kitchener Stitch for their socks.  Both had attempted to work Kitchener on their own and became lost, with the toes of their socks looking rather sad. 

With a darning needle, I picked apart all the stitches that had been worked.  This was a somewhat lengthy process as the yarn tails had been worked in already.  Once the yarn was unraveled and the stitches released, I placed them on double point needles.  My student and I spent some time making sure the stitches were straight and not twisted and then carefully checked  to see that there were no dropped stitches.

Using a new piece of wool, the yarn tail there was pretty worn, we began to stitch.  There is a mantra that I teach my students that makes it really easy to execute the Kitchener Stitch:

Front Needle: Slip the first stitch as if to knit, take it off (the needle)
                       Slip the second stitch as if to purl, and leave it on (the needle)

Back Needle: Slip the first stitch as if to purl, take it off (the needle)
                       Slip the second stitch as if to knit and leave it on (the needle)

I worked the first sock and my student the other and she was amazed that with just a quick instruction on how to move back and forth between the front and back needles, she was able to complete the second sock. 

Kitchener Stitch has so many uses besides weaving sock toes.  There are sweater/vest shoulders, hats, sock feet to legs (as in my daughter's knee socks.) just to name a couple.  In the case of my daughter's
knee socks she wanted to knit, she had a deadline for them to be finished.  However, she had never knit socks before.  So I designed the top of her socks, ankle up, and I knit the feet.  When all the knitting was finished, I Kitchenered the feet to the legs...no one would ever be able to tell, after all, the join was at her ankles.

If you area still having some difficulty, please go to my website, youandmeknit.com, and click on the YouTube button.  It will take you directly to my videos (one so far) the first one being on Kitchener Stitch.  Leave a comment below or click on the ball of yarn on my Home Page and send me an email and let me know how the instructions worked for you.

Have a great day and Happy Knitting!