Stitches

knitting: why do the number of stitches keep growing as i knit?

I want to keep it 30 stitches per row, but now it's grown to 35?! how did this happen? And how do i make it go back to 30 (without dropping holes in my knitting!)

Public Comments

1. i would say if you started with 30 stitches you pick up extra ones maybe as the wool had split and you thought it may be the next two stitches instead of one.
2. This can happen if you accidently pick up stitches in your knitting between stitches or if you accidently yarn over while knitting. I don't know exactly what you're knitting, but I would guess that you just accidently picked up stitches. It can be easily rectified by just decreasing the stitches back down. Visit http://www.knittinghelp.com to view videos on how to decrease in a variety of ways.
3. Knit two stitches together evenly spaced across your work five times to bring it back to 30. If it was me, I would pull out my work back to 30 sts. It is important to count each row before moving on . I have been knitting for over twenty years and still count my stitches. good luck.
4. One of my early mistakes was to not watch the way my yarn dropped in the first stitch. Take a look. If you do it right, it'll give you one loop on the yarn. If you move the yarn, you'll see two loops on your yarn, that come from the bottom. Also, the problem with a split yarn as mentioned above, and the problem with an accidental yarn over will cause an extra stitch. I started doing better when I made a blanket that needed a change in pattern every 10 stitches. I used stitch counters, and it was very easy to see 10 stitches each time and if I made a mistake I could correct it right away. Knitting two together 5 times evenly spaced will take care of the extra stitches immediately in one row. If you can see where you might have made the extra stitches, you can unravel the stitches a few rows until you have it right. Or, if it happened gradually, you might consider knitting 2 together spread over the stitches and spread over a few rows until you have it right, to make the correction more gradual.
5. take a look at your first stitch. Have you looped the wool the wrong way over the needle at the end of the previous row? This is the most common cause of adding unwanted stitches. As to getting rid, I would undo back to the first increase
6. I DONT KNOW HOW I KNOW THIS BUT YOU ARE KINDA DOING A KFB(KNIT INFRONT AND BACK OF STICH) AND INCREASING THE STICHES