Learning to knit and working on your early projects is great. But it’s not without its bumps along the way! We’ve all been there: that sinking feeling when you realize you’ve made a mistake in your knitting.
But fear not!
In this blog post I’m going to tell you more about the most common knitting mistakes and, how to spot knitting mistakes and, more importantly, how to fix them. Even if you haven’t made any mistakes (yet!), it’s worth reading through this post so you can learn now to avoid some of the most common errors.
Losing count of your stitches
It’s easy to lose track of how many stitches you’ve got on your needles. This can happen especially easily when you’re knee-deep in a project. So, here are some simple solutions to keep you on track.
Start small: When you’re starting out with knitting, it’s easier to keep track of your stitches if your project is small. It’s also helpful to knit something without too much shaping. This means the number of stitches you’re meant to have doesn’t change too much from row to row. Scarves can be a bit time-consuming for beginner knitters, even though there’s minimal shaping. But something like a beanie hat would be a good idea. These are manageable and you only need to shape the top.
Use stitch markers: These are very handy little tools that you can clip onto the stitches on your needle. You can place them every 10, 20 or even 50 stitches, depending on the number of stitches you’re working with. The more stitches you have, the further apart you’re likely to put your stitch markers. As well as helping you to count your stitches, stitch markers also help prevent you dropping or creating extra stitches as you knit. This is because they make it much easier to see if this is happening. So you can sort it before it causes a big problem.
Stitches Falling Off the Needles
This is so annoying! And it’s more likely to happen when you’re quite new to knitting. New knitters tend to knit quite tightly. So sometimes you need to pull quite hard to get the ‘old’ stitch off the left-hand needle. Then comes the dreaded moment when several other stitches fall off the needle, too.
The best solution is, of course, to go gently and to not knit too tightly. See below for more on this. Aim for your stitches to be even and snug against each other. But don’t make them so tight that it’s hard to move them along your needle. But don’t knit too loosely either – as this can also make it easier for stitches to fall off.
Some people also find that stitches fall off more easily when they use certain kinds of yarns and needles. When you’re starting out, choose yarns that aren’t too slippery. Try to avoid very smooth and silky yarns. Also, many people find that bamboo or wooden needles are easier to work with than metal or plastic ones. This is because they are slightly less smooth, so there’s more friction between them and your yarn.
If the worst happens, hold your work gently and lay it flat out in front of you. And take care not to pull on the free end of the yarn. Laying your work flat will help make sure the problem doesn’t get worse. And it will help you see the slipped-off stitches. If this is the case, pinch your work just below the dropped stitch loop, and pick it (or them!).
To avoid dropping stitches in the first place, always handle your knitting carefully. It’s very easy for stitches to slip off the needle when you’re picking up your work or putting it down.
Too many stitches on your needle
Finding more stitches on your needles than you cast on can be a head-scratcher.
Additional stitches are normally the result of one of three reasons. You might have picked up an additional ‘strand’ of yarn as you knit a stitch. Or perhaps you’ve wrapped your yarn round your needle twice instead of once and so made an extra stitch. Or it could be that you’ve knitted into the same stitch twice. This last one is particularly likely to happen at the beginning of a row. So take extra care when making your first stitch.
Here are some tips to stop extra stitches appearing in the first place.
Check your work regularly. Counting your stitches every couple of rows can seem like a bit of a pain. What you really want to do is get stuck in and knit as fast as you can! But it’s a really good idea to check your work as you go, as it helps you catch mistakes early.
One final piece of advice: though it’s tempting to plough on with your project when you notice a few additional stitches, I’d strongly advise against it. This is because I want to make sure you are happy with the end result of your project. And if it’s a bit wonky – you probably won’t be!
My knitting is too tight
New knitters often knit very tightly. This is because they’re keen to avoid baggy, uneven knitting. And tugging the yarn tightly after every stitch seems like a good way of doing this. The problem is, you need to make sure your stitches are snug and even. But you don’t want to knit too tightly. Tight causes two main problems.
Firstly, when the stitches are very tight on the needle, it’s hard to move them along the needle as you knit your row. This can cause stitches to accidentally slip off if you pull too hard (as I mentioned above).
Also, if you knit too tightly your finished knitting will be smaller than indicated on your pattern. When you knit tightly, each stitch becomes smaller and more compact. So you end up with more stitches packed into each inch of your work. Imagine if you were building a wall with bricks placed too close together. The wall would end up shorter than planned because there are more bricks in the same amount of space. It’s similar with knitting!
Remember, however, not to be too hard on yourself when you’re learning to knit. It takes time to get the feel of things.
If you’re not sure whether you knit too tightly or not, knit a ‘gauge’ or ‘tension’ square to find out. You’ll find information for these at the beginning of almost every knitting pattern. The idea is that you use the needles they recommend to knit a square, to check that you’re knitting to the right tension. This, in turn, will make sure your finished item is the right size. Please do this ALWAYS. I have wanted to launch straight into something on more than one occasion and lived to regret not doing that gauge/tension square! It really is worth the extra time and effort.
My knitting is too loose!
Although this happens less often with new knitters, some people knit too loosely. This means that your stitches can slip off your needle quite easily, even when you’re just picking up or putting down your work.
It also means that your project will be too large, and the knitted fabric will probably be slack and uneven.
To avoid knitting too loosely, be careful about selecting the right needles for your project. It sounds obvious, but new knitters don’t always realise how important this is. If you don’t have the right needles, it can be tempting to pick the ones you’ve got that are closest. Please don’t do this. Often, you can’t see much difference between the thickness of similarly sized needles when you look at them. But I promise it will make a real difference to your work. Oh… and don’t use one needle of one size and another that’s a slightly different size!
Help, I’ve dropped a stitch!
It’s really easy to drop stitches – but thankfully it’s easier to fix than you might imagine. If you’ve just dropped a stitch, you can pinch just below it to stop it unravelling. Then you can poke your knitting needle through the loop to pick it up.
If the stitch has already unravelled, you’ll notice a sort of ‘ladder’ in your work. In this case, you’ll need to rework the ‘ladder’ before you can put your stitch back on the needle. The easiest way to do this is with a crochet hook. However, at a pinch, you can use the tip of a slim knitting needle.
This is quite hard to explain in words, so I’ve found a really useful video for you here if you want to pick up stitches when you’re working stockinette (stocking) stitch. If you’re working in garter stitch, it’s slightly trickier. But there’s a useful video here. If you drop a stitch when you’re working a more complex type of stitch pattern, you might find it quickest and easiest just to unpick your work, right down to the row where you dropped the stitch.
My knitting has holes and looks messy
with your yarn at the front instead of the back. If you do this, the yarn goes over your needle when it shouldn’t, and creates an extra stitch. Alternatively, perhaps you’ve purled a stitch with the yarn at the back instead of the front. Like so many things in knitting, it’s all about being careful. This is particularly true when you’re just starting out and things haven’t yet become second nature.
If you’re knitting looks uneven, it’s probably to do with the tension. It could be that you’re knitting some stitches or rows too tightly and others too loosely. This is quite normal. Like any skill, it takes a while to get used to knitting. Just keep practicing and soon you’ll find that knitting to the right tension comes naturally. Don’t beat yourself up too much. You won’t be a perfect knitter from day one.
The other thing to remember is that ‘uneven’ knitting can be made more even by a process called ‘blocking’. This is basically about wetting and reshaping your work when damp. But I’m not going in to all that now – that’s for a later post.
Wrapping it up!
Learning to knit can be fun but you might make mistakes as you start. This blog post helps you identify and fix common knitting errors. Tips include using stitch markers to track your stitches and not knitting too tightly to avoid dropping stitches. It also covers how to fix extra stitches and the importance of knitting evenly to avoid holes and messy stitches.