Knitting mistakes happen all the time. Though these errors can seem dire to beginners, most are easy to fix.
Table of Contents
Picking Up Dropped Stitches
Sometimes a stitch will accidentally slide off your needle while you’re knitting. This is called dropping a stitch. A dropped stitch looks like this:
- Insert your right needle through the front of the dropped stitch, then through the front of the loose strand
- Use the left needle to lift the dropped stitch over the loose strand.
- Transfer the dropped stitch from the left needle back to the right needle and keep knitting.
Fixing Multiple Rows of Dropped Stitches
Sometimes a dropped stitch can cause a whole column of stitches to unravel, so that there’s a dropped stitch at the bottom of a number of loose strands, resembling the rungs of a ladder.
- If the dropped stitch is a knit stitch, insert your crochet hook from front to back into the loop of the dropped stitch at the bottom of the column and grab the strand behind it. Pull the strand through the loop toward you.
- If the dropped stitch is a purl stitch, turn your knitting around so that the knit side of the stitch is facing you, and pull it through just as you did in step 1.
- Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each knit and purl stitch up the column until there are no more horizontal rungs of yarn and your stitch is even with the rest of the stitches on the needle.
- Return the top dropped stitch to the left needle, making sure it sits correctly on the needle
Changing Between Knit and Purl Stitches
It’s not uncommon to knit accidentally when you meant to purl, or vice versa. You can fix this mistake, even if you don’t notice it until many rows later.
- Knit along the current row until you’ve reached the column where you see the mistake. Stop knitting in the column previous to the column with the mistake.
- Drop the next stitch off your left needle. Let it run down your work until the stitch that’s wrong has also been dropped.
- Use your crochet hook to pick up all the stitches in the column, as you would for accidentally dropped stitches.
Unknitting
If you catch a mistake while you’re still on the same row, the fastest way to solve the problem might be to unknit. This involves undoing your stitches one by one, and transferring the fabric from the right needle back to the left.
- If the knit side is facing you, slide your left needle from front to back into the loop just below the stitch that you want to unknit
- The action for unknitting from the purl side is similar to that for the knit side. Slide your left needle from front to back into the loop below the stitch that you want to unknit.
- For either knit or purl stitch, remove the right needle from the stitch, leaving an extra loop.
- Pull the yarn gently to get rid of the extra loop.
Unraveling
If your mistake is a ways down your fabric, or if it’s more complex than one purl where there should be a knit, you may have to unravel your fabric. This means undoing all the stitches until you get to the place before the error.
- Take your work off your needles and slowly, gently, pull the stitches out until you’re past the mistake.
- Slide your needles carefully back into the loops, making sure not to twist any stitches.
Fixing Twisted Stitches
There’s a right and a wrong way for stitches to sit on your needle. A stitch is sitting correctly if the front part of the stitch is on the side of the needle closer to you. If the stitch is sitting so that the back part of the stitch is on the side of the needle closest to you, then it’s incorrect and called a twisted stitch. Stitches can get twisted when you’re fixing dropped stitches or if your needle falls out of your work.
- Slide it off the left needle.
- Turn the stitch.
- Slide the stitch back on.
- Insert your right needle into the stitch to start knitting.
