no-graft Caricia?

in the Caricia thread of the knitspots forum, some knitters are still leery of the 5-stitch graft that's called for in the pattern instructions -- I have an idea that it could be eliminated by doing a provisional cast-on of 6 stitches then knitting both sides of the PCO, with 3 purl stitches in the 6th cast-on stitch ... probably using magic-loop or dpns for several rounds