If you're reading this first, you may want to read Part 1 and then come back. If you're not into knitting, forgive me, I'll stop talking about it soon enough!
I owe a debt of gratitude to Danielle at Fibre Space, because without her I would never have learned how to knit.
Yesterday I shared a few knitting tips that have helped me, a knitter with ten weeks under my belt, to vastly improve my knitting so that it's actually enjoyable and worthwhile. In Part 2 of this "mini-series," I wanted to share a collection of tips and links for fixing knitting mistakes.
In the very short time that I've been knitting, I've encountered several people who learned how to knit long ago, but who gave it up because they couldn't stomach ripping everything out whenever they made a mistake. I don't blame them! Of course, I knew there were ways to fix knitting, but I thought they'd be too complicated for beginning knitters. That's simply not the case, and everything changed for me overnight once I learned what to do. So,
4. Learn how to fix your knitting.
Heaven help you if you drop a stitch after knitting for rows and rows, and you don't know how to fix it. By my own calculations, I've easily ripped out 40 hours' worth of knitting--maybe more--in the last two months. Talk about demoralizing.
Here are some common problems for beginning knitters:
A. Dropped stitches.
Sooner or later, everyone drops a stitch. If you're me, it happens all the time. Dropped stitches, you may have been told, are like a run in your stocking; the stitch slips off the needles and potentially undoes your knitting on that column for row after row (down to your cast-on if you're really lucky!). If your solution is to undo your knitting to the point where the dropped stitch stopped unraveling, that's a pretty big impediment to making anything bigger than a washcloth.
Ironically, it's a bit trickier to fix stitches in the regular garter stitch (all knit stitches, shown above) in comparison to stockinette (where you knit and purl).
B. Purl (or knit) when you should've done the opposite.
In doing the 2x2 ribbing that I described yesterday, the biggest hurdle for the beginning knitter is knitting the stitches in the correct order according to the pattern. What a downer to discover you knitted instead of purled 15 rows later.
C. Yarn overs.
This is NOT a dropped stitch--see? no "ladders," just a weird hole from the yarnover.
An advanced knitter will tell you that most of their yarn overs are intentional. That's because they're used to make interesting knitting patterns. But if you yarn over by accident--that is, pass yarn over the needle without creating a stitch, and then continuing to knit (or purl) on down the row, you will see a strange little gap in your knitting. It's not a dropped stitch--it's not going to unravel--but it doesn't look right unless it's part of the pattern for the project.
D. Accidental increases (and decreases).
There are several different things a beginning knitter can do to increase or decrease the width of their knitting project unintentionally. As a result, your scarf keeps on getting wider and wider. If you drop a stitch at the end of a row now and then, now you've got a strangely shaped bit of knitting that only a mother could love. A very kind mother.
E. Messy edges.
If your cast-on row is unattractive, you need to practice that until you get it right. One trick if you tend to cast on too tight is to cast onto both needles and then pull one needle out, leaving the cast on stitches on the remaining needle. Also, FYI beginners: there are lots of ways to cast on, so you might want to experiment with another way if you can't get the hang of the one you're trying to do.
Bumpy sides bug the heck out of me, and as I compiled the tips for this post, I found a technique for dealing with that that I will start using right away--more on that below.
F. Twisted stitches.
When you twist your stitches, you may be producing knitting that looks right, but on closer inspection, it's not. Here is a swatch where the top half shows correct knit stitches (the V's) and correct purl stitches, while the bottom half shows twisted knit and purl stitches.
In addition to the problems listed above, there are plenty of other ways to screw up your knitting. I'm just covering the basics here. That brings me to:
5. Youtube videos (and other on line resources) are your new knitting buddies.
I am not going to provide you with step-by-step instructions for fixing your knitting, because there are plenty of resources out there that do it far better. Knitting Help has some of the best videos around that show you lots of basic techniques. When you click through, scroll down slightly to see their mistake fixing videos.
A. Fixing dropped stitches.
While you can fix dropped stitches using your knitting needles, I find it easier to use a crochet hook or some other third needle as an aid. Choose for yourself.
Here's a video for fixing dropped stitches in garter stitch (that's where you are only using the knit stitch for every row). As I mentioned, it's a bit more confusing to fix dropped garter stitches in comparison to stockinette or ribbing. Personally, I'm glad I learned to knit stockinette and ribbing (and how to fix those first) before attempting to fix a dropped garter stitch.
If you are trying to fix a dropped stitch while knitting stockinette or ribbing, Knitting Help, that great resource, has a video that's called "Correcting a stitch without unraveling rows" that uses a crotchet needle. However, here's this other one that I like a bit better that also uses a crochet needle.
Here's another for fixing stockinette and ribbing patterns using a latch hook (used in making hooked rugs).
Go here for a blog post on fixing dropped stitches (in stockinette or ribbing) with knitting needles.
B. Fixing a purl that should've been a knit stitch, and vice versa.
Guess what? If you figured out how to fix dropped stitches, you already know how to do this for many cases where you knitted instead of purled.
I won't lie to you: sometimes all you can do is rip it all out. (Actually, you can tink--undo your stitches by knitting backward--like in this video and this video--but that's probably more than you can handle right now.)
But other times you can purposely drop a stitch (gasp!), allow the knitting to unravel down through the rows to the point of the mistake, then knit (or purl) that stitch correctly, and then use the techniques for fixing the dropped stitches as explained in the videos linked above.
C. Fixing yarn overs.
Again, with your trusty knowledge for fixing dropped stitches, you can sometimes drop a stitch on purpose down to the yarn over, take the unwanted yarn off the needle, and then fix the dropped stitches back up the rows as described above under "fixing dropped stitches."
D. Fixing accidental increases.
If you are prone to accidental increases, it gets a little more complicated, because there are several ways to make this common mistake. This video can help you figure out which type of increase you're doing unintentionally, and then shows how to prevent the problem from happening again.
E. Fixing accidental decreases.
There are two ways I know of to accidentally decrease the width of your knitting (just post a comment if you know of others).
The first, probably more rare way of doing it is to stick your needle through two loops instead of one while knitting or purling, and then pulling the yarn through loops. It's hard to picture someone doing this, and I'll tell you, it's hard to spot. That's because the second loop of yarn covers the first and unless your yarn is variegated (multi-colored), it won't stand out much from the rest of the stitches. You can either tink back (see above) or use the technique for fixing dropped stitches (see above).
The second way to create an accidental decrease is to drop stitches at the end or beginning of a row. You can try to fix this problem (if you can detect it) by using the methods described above for fixing dropped stitches, but you may not like how stretched out the yarn looks in some cases. If that's so, you may sadly have to tink or rip out to that point to fix the problem.
F. Forgotten increases or decreases.
Maybe you have actually reached a point in your knitting where you're doing some decreases on purpose (like when you make a hat). Unfortunately, if you forget to increase or decrease in a row--where you're supposed to--the general advice is to tink or rip out to that point and start over.
G. Fixing bumpy sides.
For those of us who can't get our end stitches tight enough to avoid big loops and bumps on the sides, take a look at the very first video on this page, called "Demo of a Small Project." It shows you a great technique for eliminating the bumps that you get on the sides of your knitting as you go up each row. It's called "slipping the stitch" which means, I think, moving the first stitch at the start of the row from one needle to the other without knitting or purling it. This is not the same thing as dropping a stitch! I haven't tried this yet but I plan on doing so ASAP.
H. Fixing twisted stitches.
You might go a long time without realizing you're twisting your stitches. You might knit entire projects and not know. You might even post a "how to fix your knitting" post for beginners on your blog--and then figure it out. But if you knit up some 2x2 ribbing, as I've suggested, this problem will be laid bare and you can learn how to correct it. (Just check out the purple swatch above.)
This is as basic as it gets--the knit stitch--but you can inadvertently screw it up by starting each stitch with your needle in the wrong position.
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I hope all this information wasn't too overwhelming! I have a bunch of other links that teach basic knitting techniques that I'll share soon; I was trying to keep this post as short as possible.
If you have any favorite "fixing knitting videos," or blog posts on the subject, or other tips, please share!
