Essential Knitting Techniques - The Kitchener Stitch

For seaming socks to sweaters, the Kitchener stitch, also known as grafting, is essential. It finishes without adding bulk and ridges to the seam - a most uncomfortable prospect for your toes. I found a couple of different reference videos on YouTube that I like. The first video is from the knitwitch. A longer video, but her instructions are very comprehensive and she does a nice beginning set of anchoring stitches before beginning the actual graft. The second video is from heatherc3. She begins the video with the sock still on three DPNs. Nice for an explanation of which needles your live stitches end up on to begin the toe graft. Good to see for us non-Magic Loopers. As you will note with the difference in the techniques used by the knitters at the very beginning of the graft, there is NO ABSOLUTE "RIGHT WAY" that things MUST be done. For sweater seams, I will always anchor the live stitch from which the working yarn feeds (as in the first video) as an added measure of security. With cleaning, the fabric becomes wet and heavy and personally view that "anchor" as an added measure of security for my seaming. As even my machine washable socks are laundered in a lingerie bag on "hand wash" setting for agitation (love that cycle setting on my washer), I don't feel that it is always necessary to "anchor" the stitch before beginning the toe graft. There isn't a lot of wet fiber to a sock to stress the seam. However, I will confess that my Type A, perfectionist, and slightly neurotic/obsessive view of such things skews to the "ounce of prevention" adage. If an additional stitch will prevent me for worrying about toe of my Opal sock, so much the better.