Picking up purl stitches with a crochet hook -
Turn the work around and pick them up from the side that looks like a knit. Or,
especially if you are working in a pattern that alternates knits and purls in
different rows, you can pick it up from the purl side like this: Make sure the
loose strand from the dropped stitch is in front of the loop you’re going
to pick it up into. Insert the hook from behind the work and through the loop.
Coming from above the loose strand, with the hook turned down, catch the loose
strand and pull it through.
Twisted stitches -
Viewed from above, the stitches should sit on the needle slightly angled. If one
of them is sitting at the wrong angle, it’s pretty visible. But you may not
notice till you get to the stitch, and then you’ll notice that it seems
hard to get the stitch in from the left. It doesn’t want to go. If
it’s not just a tight stitch, try lifting the stitch off the tip with your
other needle tip, and turning it around. See if that helps.
Split stitches -
Sometimes your needle goes through the strand of the yarn instead of through the
loop on the needle. Some yarns are more prone to this than others. You notice
this when the yarn does not want to slip off the needle, or the stitch does not
want to open up to admit the needle for the next stitch, or the stitch has a
little strand sticking out funny. Most of the time, it’s not a big deal.
You can un-knit the stitch and pick it up again smoothly, or ignore it, or drop
it down deliberately and pick it up with a crochet hook.
Knitted when I should have purled and vice versa -
If you discover the mistake just after making it, un-knit the stitch and correct
it. If it’s just one or two stitches, in the row you’re on, but back a
ways, mark it with a split ring and fix it the next time you get around to it.
If it’s a whole section of pattern, unknit back to it and correct it. If
you find it while knitting the next row, use your needle tips or your crochet
hook to reach down one row and correct it. If it’s way down, consider
whether it matters enough to drop down all the stitches and pick them back up
vertically.
Left out a whole line of the pattern -
Unknit back to the error and correct. Or maybe this is a time to rip back.
Ran out of yarn -
If you ran out of yarn, you have to ask yourself if a) you didn’t really
have enough yarn to begin with, or b) your gauge, and therefore your garment are
a lot bigger than you planned on when you bought the yarn. If you decide the
problem is “b”, then you need to rip it out and redo it in a tighter
gauge, which will use less yarn and probably work out just fine. If your problem
is “a” you can buy more yarn, or introduce a stripe or a section of a
different shade, or pull this piece out, wind it into hanks, wash it, and save
it for a different project.
Left out some increases or decreases -
What you do about this depends on how many decreases, where you left them out,
and what that does to your pattern. Depending on your judgment of those issues,
you can increase or decrease to compensate for the missing ones in a discreet
location. If it’s just one or two stitches you can ignore it, and just
remember that this section is a stitch or two short. The smaller your gauge the
less one stitch matters. If you are working in a bulky yarn, your gauge will be
very large and one stitch is a larger percentage of the length.
Gauge changed a lot while I was working -
This is something that usually happens to beginning knitters. After your hands
get used to working a certain way, you will settle down to being a tight
knitter, an average knitter, or a loose knitter, and will be able to change your
needle sizes accordingly. Gauge may also be affected by how you are feeling from
day to day. If you are very worried, your gauge may become tighter, if relaxed,
it may become looser than usual. Usually the difference is not great enough to
matter once the garment is finished and washed. If it really makes a difference
in this particular garment (say one sleeve is larger than the other), you can
pull out the erroneous section and do it over, maybe with a larger or smaller
needle to match your original gauge. Some people work both sleeves at the same
time on the same set of needles, using two different balls of yarn. They work
row one on the left sleeve, and row one on the right sleeve. If you do this, jus
make sure you make mirror image sleeves and not two the same.
Dropped a yarn over, two rows below -
You usually find this when your lace or eyelet pattern suddently doesn’t
work out, and when you go looking for the cause, there’s an eyelet missing.
Locate where the eyelet should be. There will usually be two strands of yarn,
one over the other. With your needle tip, or with a crochet hook, reach from
under the lower strand to the top of the upper strand, catch the upper strand
and pull it under the lower strand and up. Twist slightly to the left and put
the new loop on the left needle, ready to knit.
My count of stitches is wrong -
Step one is recount. Take the best two out of three. Turn off the tv and shush
the kids for a minute if you need to. Be sure there really is a mistake in the
stitches, and not in the counting of them. If there is a real mistake in the
number of stitches, look for dropped stitches, or catching two stitches together
(accidental decrease) or did you miss an increase or decrease in the pattern.
Didn't cast on enough stitches -
You can cast on some more, or put increases in the first row of the pattern.
Here again, you need to check carefully to make sure you didn’t just count
wrong the second time you were counting stitches. A lot of people use ring
markers, or strands of different colored yarn tied in a loop to mark every 25th
or 50th or some other number of stitches, so it’s easier to count.
Forgot where I was in the pattern -
Using ring markers, and line at a time, and keeping tallies, or checking off
rows as you do them, or using a needlepointer’s magnifying bar to keep your
place. Another good suggestion is to make a copy of the pattern you will use and
keep it in a plastic sheet proctector. This is especially good when the pattern
is in a published book that you do not want to lug around with you
everywhere.
| copyright cjwyche, 2000-2006 These patterns and documents are essentially learning tools and I favor free access to knowledge on the internet, I have placed them on this web page under Copyleft|GNU Free Documentation License (version 1.2 or any later version). This means you have permission to freely download, ocpy and use content from this web site under the same License. Any creative changes you make to this source material cannot be copyrighted, but must also be freely distributed under the License. |
Modified: 2006-02-03
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