I have two halves

Humph. I have been knitting like crazy tonight to finish the second half of the vines scarf. Well, I made it. And then it occurred to me that I need to join the two halves together. Actually, it's been occurring to me off and on for the past 2 nights, but I've been able to put it off. Until now. The lace is ready to become a scarf, and here I am wondering how on earth I am going to join it. My favorite grafting method is one that I made up, which involves knitting one stitch from each half together in my normal cast off. I am sure that this has a name, but I don't know what it is. It's not something I was taught; I just sort of intuitively figured it out when confronted with two things that needed to become one. But somehow it doesn't seem appropriate for this case. It seems like there should be a better way out there.

Now, if this had been a scarf with a pattern that could be worked from the middle, I'd have had no problem. I'd have used Judy Becker's magic cast on that I've been using from Cat Bordhi's sock book, and knit from the center out in both directions. But the vines pattern has a very nice scalloped cast on edge that would have been a shame to lose (and probably would have made for a very awkward join anyway). So, I knit both halves. When I finished the first, I just cut the yarn and kept it on my circulars while I knit the second. This made it very easy to compare length and determine that yes, it is now time to finish the piece. But how?

I've heard a lot about Kitchener stitch, and while I've never tried it, I think it sounds pretty straightforward. But it offsets the pattern by half a stitch. In the grand scheme of things, half a stitch is probably insignificant and will never be noticed. But it's half a stitch. I want it to match exactly. I don't really feel like trying the waste yarn method, either, where you knit a few rows, join, and then pull out the waste yarn. If it were after Christmas, I would have either been given or have bought some basic knit technique books, and they would probably solve my problem. But, as it is not yet after Christmas, I have only 4 stitch dictionaries (can you tell where my main interest lies?), the Knitter's Book of Yarn, and Knitting in the Old Way, which only discusses Kitchener.

If it were after Christmas, I would also have put myself through the knitting grammary lessons that I have planned (more on those later), and I would already know how to graft. But alas, it is not after Christmas, and as this scarf will be gone by then, I need to figure something out in the meantime.

And now that I have succeeded in my goal of finishing the second half of the scarf tonight, I think I am going to wander off and leave the grafting for tomorrow. It's after 10, and my eyes are getting fuzzy, which strikes me as probably a bad time to start working on something completely new and probably harder than it seems with dark yarn and half an hour until bedtime. I hate to leave it unfinished, but I think the world will be a better place if I avoid unnecessarily frustrating myself with what should be a simple task. And so, to bed and reading about knitting rather than doing it. Yay for procrastination!