Common Beginner Knitting Mistakes and How to Fix Them

You’ve decided to take up knitting. Good for you! You’ve mastered how to knit and you’re chugging along, happily knitting a little garter stitch scarf or cowl.

Everything’s copacetic until you realise that you’ve dropped a stitch – ack! – or you’ve added extra stitches – where did those come from? – or maybe your knitting’s awesome except that it’s so tight you practically sprain a muscle trying to get your needle into the stitches.

As frightening as these scenarios sound, you are not alone!

Past and future knitters have and will be making these same mistakes. So, when you encounter them, don’t freak out.

Knitting mistakes are part of the natural course of things. So, let’s take a closer look at these common beginner bugaboos and the best ways to fix them.

Knitting Mistake 1: Dropped Stitches

At some point you will drop a stitch. It’s an unfortunate fact of life as certain as death and taxes.

You’ll recognise a dropped stitch by a long tear in your fabric and a wayward stitch at the bottom. When this happens, don’t panic!

As frightening as it looks – so sad and helpless, like a child fallen into a well – it’s nothing to fret about.

On stockinette and garter stitch it takes less than a minute to fix, and when you’re done no one will be any the wiser!

Panic Level: LOW

Click This: For a more detailed guide on how to fix a dropped stitch, check out this post I put together with a photo guide.

Knitting Mistake 2: Adding Stitches

At some point, you might look down at your knitting and think,“Whoa! Why do I have so many stitches on my needle?”

You’ve got more stitches than you cast on! You, my friend, have accidentally added extra stitches to your knitting.

This knitting mistake happens to most beginner knitters, so don’t beat yourself up about it.

There’s one way to fix an added stitch, but it requires that you keep your eyes peeled so that you catch the little sneak before it gets embedded into your knitting.

Panic Level: MODERATE

Click This: For a more detailed guide on how to fix extra stitches, check out this post I wrote with a photo guide.

Knitting Mistake 3: Tight Knitting

When you’re first starting out as a knitter, you’re excited and nervous.

But sometimes the nerves take over and you start gripping the needles and pulling the yarn. You’re scared  your stitches will fall off.

But the problem is that your knitting is so tight you can barely get your needles into the stitches. You’re going to pull a muscle if you don’t take it easy!

Below, three ways to loosen up tight knitting.

Panic Level: DON’T PANIC

Click This: For a more detailed guide, check out this post that I put together on tight knitting.

Knitting Mistake 4: Knitting into the Wrong Loop

As a beginner it can be hard to differentiate a stitch versus a random loop.

This mistake happens when, instead of knitting into a stitch on your needle, you knit into the loop around the stitch.

If you knit into the loop around the stitch and then knit into the actual stitch, this adds an extra stitch to the knitting.

If you’ve only done this once or twice, you can reduce the overall number of stitches by knitting two stitches together.

But if you’ve got LOTS of these extra stitches, it’s worthwhile to unravel the knitting and re-knit.

The best way to prevent this mistake is to be observant.

Ensure you’re knitting into the stitch on the needle and not into the loop around the stitch.

Panic Level: Moderate 

How to Prevent Knitting Mistakes?

The best way to prevent these three common knitting mistakes is to frequently admire your work.

It’s not narcissistic. It’s just good knitting sense!

If something looks funky, stop and investigate.

Did you accidentally do a yarn over?

Are you knitting on the tips of your needles?

Like weird skin rashes, ignoring knitting problems rarely makes it go away. So, be vigilant!

And when you need to rip back your work, take a deep breath and rip, rip, rip.

Lastly, don’t even think about getting upset when you make a mistake. 

The person who never made a mistake never made anything. So make mistakes!

Mistakes mean you’re creating, and that’s a heckuva lot better than doing nothing.

If you’re a new knitter, I hope you’re getting the hang of knitting! Let me know if you encounter any of these knitting mistakes.

If there are others that I haven’t covered, leave them in the comments!