Monday, September 3, 2007

Beginning Knitters, Big Stitches, and Yahoo Answers


This person had the opposite problem from the one I mentioned earlier. Her stitches were too big. Another Yahoo Answerer, named Sue, suggested she rip out and reknit. I came back with "the rest of the story."
Sue gave an excellent answer. Frog it (rippit rippit) to a few stitches before the bobble, then knit it better on the next try. My Mom always said "If you don't rip out, you don't wear out." meaning "if you don't go back and fix it, you won't want to be seen in public wearing it." I will give you a no-rip solution at the bottom of this message. Sometimes the oops is so far down that you just hate to rip back that far.

NOW -- why did it happen in the first place? It's a matter of tension. You did not control the yarn as it came through your fingers. If you look at an instruction book, it usually shows you twining the ball end of the yarn through your fingers in some manner. This is to put a little bit of drag on the yarn so you can control the amount of yarn you pull through in stitch formation. In this case, you pulled through a lot of yarn and didn't snug it up to your needle enough.

Most beginners have the opposite problem from you. They snug their yarn so tightly they don't leave enough room to slip the second needle in to form the next stitch. Either problem is solved by being aware of the finishing stage of stitch formation and being certain the loop is a regular size -- not too tight, not too loose.

NO-RIP SOLUTION. This doesn't always work, but it's worth trying before you frog. Lay your knitted fabric on a flat surface, such as a table, and find the line of yarn that formed the too-big stitch. Using the point of one of your needles, tug on the yarn before and after the too big stitch to bring it down to the right size. Move left (or right) to the next stitch and adjust it to take up the slack. Keep moving over one stitch taking up slack until you have dispersed the extra yarn evenly through the row. Don't worry that now the entire row looks a bit too loose. When you wash the item the tug/tug of washing will readjust the tension throughout the piece. Check yarn care instructions. Machine washing does more for tension readjustment than hand-washing, but not all yarns are machine washable.

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