This Is Not Knitting

This is, however, maddening.
The Heart Harf, my dears, has come to a screeching halt.
It has come to such a halt that I've been willingly working on the Third Damn Doily the past few evenings in an effort to avoid the Harf.
I imagine that on some plane of existence my brilliant plan to work both halves of the Harf hood up to the center and graft them together stayed brilliant.
In my current reality, it kind of sucks.
I shall do my best to be clear and informative here, because I know that at some point in the future some poor soul is going to end up on my blog because she or he did an internet search for "grafting or kitchener stitch on reverse stockinette stitch."
Of course, being clear will not circumvent my normal habit of being long winded.

Return of the Prototype
Actually, working kitchener stitch on reverse stockinette is much easier than you might expect. Or at least as easy as working it on stockinette.
A fact I quickly realized when I started in on the prototype Harf.
You remember the prototype, yes? The orange and yellow Cascade 220 version.
I had considered frogging it, but was too lazy, and then I was glad.
I picked it apart at the color change, worked a few rows in yellow to get the ribbing/cable panel to line up correctly and had at it.
I used purple yarn for the sewing so we could see what is going on.

Here are the Steps
Usually, I use kitchener stitch to close up sock toes, but I understand it can be used for shoulder seems and other areas where you want smooth fabric.
I don't have a sock toe to demonstrate on, so you will have to use your imagination.
Ok, I hold the needles parallel with the working yarn coming from the back needle.
My path is:

1. 1st Front—go in Knitwise, take the stitch off the needle
2. 2nd Front—go in Purlwise, leave the stitch on the needle
3. 1st Back—Purlwise, Off
4. 2nd Back—Knitwise, On

And you repeat that down the row until all your stitches are used up.
Except! on the first stitches on the front and back you work the second half once, then start in.
So, really, it goes:

• 1st Front—Purlwise, on
• 1st Back—Knitwise, on

1. 1st Front—go in Knitwise, take the stitch off the needle
2. 2nd Front—go in Purlwise, leave the stitch on the needle
3. 1st Back—Purlwise, Off
4. 2nd Back—Knitwise, On

Which was all well and good for the first four stitches, which are the cable and are in stockinette stitch.
On the body of the hood, which is reverse St St, I found that I simply had to reverse the steps.
So it was:

1. 1st Front—Purlwise, off
2. 2nd Front—Knitwise, on
3. 1st Back—Knitwise, off
4. 2nd Back—Purlwise, on

That was Then, This is Saturday
Except it was all out the door when it came to the ribbing, as you can see in the first photo.
Yeah, the ribbing kicked my butt. At the ribbing, I had to switch back to working kitchener stitch the normal way.
I found that I had to start the switch on the stitch before the one that was knit on the public side on the, uh, back needle. But I had to continue as for rev st st on the front needles until I reached that knit stitch.
Yeah, I don't understand it myself, and I'm the one who was just downstairs working it!
As you can see, I didn't really get the switching worked out until the very end.
I'm debating whether I should pick the portion through the cable panel out and rework it.
Of course, I should do that straight away, while it's all still sort of fresh in my mind.
I mean, I am going to enter this in a contest, so I should make it look as nice as possible, right?
I also need to go through it and work some slack in, or out as the case may be. Some parts of the graft seam are tight.
Additionally, in that first photo you can see there is a bit of a flat spot in the cable. So when I reached the leading edge I went ahead and put in another cable twist. I think that it is a little less obvious.
(There are more pictures of me trying on the hood bit over in my Flickr stream. But I look like a goof in them, so I'm not putting them on the blog! Clicking on any of the pictures will take you there.)