Knitting Help And Common Knitting Mistakes

knitting help

knitting helpHere is some knitting help that you may find useful from time to time.

I have tried to source the most common knitting mistakes that I make and my friends make and put together an article entitled Knitting Help.

Knitting Help on 4 of the most Common Knitting Mistakes

Problem 1:

How Do I Stop Increasing My Stitches Without Realising It?

This is a common problem with new knitters.

When they get to the end of a row, the needle with the stitches is in your right hand and the empty needle is in your left. Now you turn the knitting around to keep going.

On starting your new row, the yarn is at the back, so make sure you don’t bring the yarn over the needle from the right side otherwise it makes an extra loop over the needle, thus making an extra stitch. Make sure to bring the yarn to the back under the needle towards your left and around.

If you bring the yarn to the back over the needle, that pulls the first stitch of the row up, so that it looks like two loops on the needle instead of one.

Problem 2:  

I need knitting help with tracking where I am in a pattern

It is really frustrating if you are knitting a complicated pattern with many rows of pattern, like lace, and you keep losing your place of where you are in the pattern.

The best way is to block off the rows that you have already done or to physically show yourself which row you are working on.

Normally knitting patterns are quite small, so a good idea would be to photocopy it and make it larger. If you want to make notes on the pattern, it is a good idea to photo copy it in any case.

Try using a magnetised board (these can be found in the cross stitch section of craft stores) and use the long, straight magnet to “underline” the row you’re currently working on by just sliding the magnet down as you go.  A ruler can also do the trick, but it tends to move around.

If you’re working from a chart and you don’t need to repeat the rows again, you can highlight each row as you knit it (or before you start) so you always know where you are in your pattern.

Problem 3:

Help I made a mistake and I don’t want to pull all my knitting out

If you are knitting and you see that you have made a mistake further back in the row, you can carefully just knit backwards, or pull those few stitches out and carry on without wasting too much time. If you knit backwards it is called tinking (tink is knit spelt backwards). Here is a video that shows you how to tink.

Unfortunately, we often notice that we have made a mistake once we have knitted for a while and the mistake is quite a few rows back.

Most times, unless it is a dropped stitch, the best thing to do is to take the knitting off the needles and pull the work out to that point and rethread the needle being careful to catch all your stitches again. Pulling out your knitting in knitters terms is called frogging.

If it is a big mistake, most times the process of frogging is unavoidable, as there are no quick fixes here, frustrating as it may seem.

Problem 4:

Help I have dropped a stitch

Dropping stitches does happen quite often. Luckily you won’t need to pull out all your knitting and start again as this problem is relatively simple to fix.

You will notice a dropped stitch as you will see a ladder working its way down your work.  Knit your row up to the point that you see the dropped stitch or where your dropped stitch should be sitting on the needle.

Find a crochet hook that will easily hook the yarn you are working with.  Now slide the crochet hook into the dropped stitch from front to back of the knitting. Then grab the loose horizontal piece of yarn closest to the loop, grabbing it from behind and pulling it through the loop of the stitch, just like you are making a chain.

If your stitch has slipped down more than one row, continue working by catching each horizontal piece of yarn, in the same manner, to get back to the row you were knitting before you stopped to fix the dropped stitch.

When you’re back to the top, just slip the loop back onto the right-hand needle and knit the stitch. Then finish knitting the row as normal – simple!

Click here for some great knitting books you can purchase online at great prices, especially for beginners.


  1. Hi,
    Thanks for this helpful article. I am actually trying to knit a toy bear have managed to knit most of it and realized that I have ran out of the knitting cloth but I cannot seems to find the correct color of the material anymore. What do you think I should do? Re knit everything or just knit it with a different color? I think it would look weird if the color is a little different from the previous material.

    1. Hi Jacob, yes it is a problem when you run out of wool, as the next batch is never the exact same dye. I would try and salvage it, and get the colour as close as you can. You could also undo a bit and blend the new colour with the old by knitting three rows with both colours before starting on the new colour.

      It all depends on how the bear looks and where the colour will be joined.

  2. What’s a great article? My daughter was recently planning to knit a scarf for her boyfriend. She is learning how to do it. Your article comes in handy as I guess she will make some mistakes when knitting. The problem number 3 is the most important I think because she has only 3 days left to knit the scarf. Her boyfriend has his birthday 3 days later. Anyway, thx 4 ur article.

  3. Your article is reassuring for a person like me who has very little experience with knitting, but have tried several times. I give up when when I drop a stitch and after undoing all my work too many times, I just give up.

    I have not run across your solution for this before, so I may have to dig the knitting needles out of the closet and try again.

    1. It just takes practice and patience in the beginning, and before you know it knitting will be second nature.

      Thanks for the comment Kerri.

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