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So about these pockets on my just finished Vanilla Cardigan! I’m on record as being a huge fan of an inset pocket — one of the most magical of all the knitting tricks — and yet I didn’t do them on this sweater. That’s because my original plan for the pockets was something else entirely (now saved for another time) and I didn’t want to commit one way or the other during the knitting. The happy upside being that I wound up making patch pockets for the first time, and you know how much I like to do something new — especially in an otherwise extremely straightforward project like this one. While grafting on a patch pocket lacks some of the TA DA!! of an inset pocket, it was every bit as satisfying to do, and looks amazing.

I’d read up on patch pockets versus inset ones ages ago and looked it up again. As with anything in knitting, there are lots of ways to do it — from picking up stitches and joining the ends of the rows as you knit (so there’s no seaming), to picking up for the bottom edge and sewing down the sides afterwards, to knitting them entirely separately and sewing them on … with all manner of variations in the details of all three. I wanted to knit my pockets during our pop-up shop, which meant knitting them separately, but when it came to sewing them on I was torn. Most of the sources I’ve ever looked at suggest sort of whipstitching the selvage stitch to the adjacent stitch from the body of the sweater (same or similar to sewing down the backside of an inset), but I wondered why I couldn’t use mattress stitch so that the selvage stitch would be turned under on the inside of the pocket. It occurred to me to pull my copy of “The Principles of Knitting” off the shelf and see what the esteemed June Hemmons Hiatt has to say on the subject, and that was exactly her recommendation — although she calls mattress stitch “running thread stitch.” So that’s what I did!

My pockets are about 6″ tall and 30 stitches wide, 2 of which would be my selvage stitches — the stitch at each edge that disappears into the seam. So (after blocking the pockets nice and flat, of course) I counted off the 28 stitches of the body that I wanted the pocket to lie on top of — I chose to start it 8 stitches away from the button band — and stuck a DPN in the gutter so you/I could see it. That’s the stack of bars I would use for my mattress stitch up the sides. I also pinned a marker in the two stitches that would correspond to the lower corner stitches of my pocket.

I like the shadow line of the bottom pocket edge to be the same as the top row of the ribbing — that’s always my aim in pocket placement — and I would be using duplicate stitch to graft the bottom edge. So the row of stitches I’m duplicating is the first row of stockinette above the ribbing.* I chose to work the bottom edge first — leaving a tail long enough to sew up the right side — and then go back and do the two sides.

Here’s how to graft the lower pocket edge—

Step 1: Thread the needle and bring it up through the right bottom corner stitch on the body.

Step 2: Run the needle behind both legs of the first stitch (skipping the selvage st) on the pocket.

Step 3: Run the needle back down into the center of first body stitch (go back in where you came out, in other words) and up through the center of the stitch to the left of it.

Repeat all the way across for designated number of stitches, pulling the tail (the duplicate stitches) into position after every few. You need to be careful to pull the tail just enough that the running thread mimics the tension of the stitches — you don’t want to actually cinch up your fabric.

Once the bottom was grafted, I went back and worked mattress stitch up both sides, picking up the bars in the gutter identified above by the DPNs and the bars next to the selvage stitch on the pocket. Weave in the ends, using them to secure the upper pocket corners firmly and neatly, and voilà.

For a pocket in textured fabric where the grafting would be more challenging, I think I would stick with an inset pocket. But for simple stockinette like this, I might actually prefer this method. I’m extremely happy with the results.

For the rest of the yarn and pattern details (complete recipe) for this sweater, see 2017 FO 17 : Vanilla cardigan.

And see also:
– How to knit inset pockets
– How to knit inset pockets (top-down)

*Note that this sweater was knitted top-down but here I’m working with it and the pocket from the bottom up, so that’s how I’m picking out and aligning the stitches. It doesn’t matter which direction they were originally worked — you’re just identifying and aligning columns of Vs.

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