Stitches

Knitting Beginner: Why do I have a lot more stitches than I started with?

I'm just practicing the basic knitting stitch, repeating it row by row, and I started with 20 cast-on stitches, and now I have 30+.. somehow I keep adding stitches, any suggestions??

Public Comments

1. After you knit into the stitch are you making sure to take the remaining part of the stitch you just knit into off the left needle?
2. This is exactly how I started off with 20 stitches and I ended up with like 40+. Though towards the end every row was consistent with the 40+. My only advice is when knitting every couple of rows either count or just eye-ball to see if you are on track with the correct amount of stitches. Practice makes perfect! Hope this helps =)
3. Make sure that your working yarn is is to the right of your working needle. It sounds like you are "yarning over". Meaning you are bringing your yarn across the needle and then knitting your stitch. Everyone that learns to knit does it at one time or another. Keep at it you'll get the hang of it.!!
4. At the beginning of each row, you need to pull the yarn to the back of the work. If you leave it hanging toward the front, you will see 2 loops on the needle for the first stitch, and you probably knit both loops. Thus you increase one stitch every row. Hope this helps!
5. I would have to say you somehow added extra stitches. This can be good.Some patterns call for increasing but I would say you would have to FROG it meanning Rippit and start again good luck. There is a great sight that I taught myself to knit. www.knittinghelp.com Great sight. i would try it out
6. At the beginning of every row be sure to hold the yarn in front. If you hold it behind by pulling the yarn up over the top of the needle, the first stitch will look like two stitches. When you're first learning, it helps to count your stitches at the end of every row. If you have one too many stitches, you can just k2tog (knit two stitches together) on the next row. If you belong to a Stitch 'n B!tch or other knitting group, you can ask another member to show you where you made your extra stitch and how to correct it -- it's easier to show than to explain in text. Another thing to look for is holes in your knitting. They're made by wrapping the yarn around the needle (it's easy to do by mistake when you're switching between knit & purl and moving the yarn back & forth) and it increases your stitch count by one. Eventually you'll learn do it on purpose -- yo (yarn over) is used to make eyelets, lace & buttonholes.
7. I don't know if you're knitting English or Continental or something else entirely, so I'll hope I can explain for any variation. Looking at the 20-30 stitch piece: Get some contrasting sewing thread and hand-baste (running-stitch) a vertical line beginning one stitch from each end. After beginning follow the columns of stitches, rather than counting from the edge. If you discover you're getting stitches at the edges, then you're accidently getting a extra yarn-over as you turn. You can absolutely control this with two stitch markers (even twisty ties from bread loaves), placed after the first stitch and before the last stitch. If you can count to 1 and recognize that 2 isn't it, you can correct/avoid the yarn-overs as they occur. If you've also gained stitches in the middle areas, there may be accidental yarn-overs there also. It doesn't help much to say "be more careful". More on this in final paragraph. Grab some scrap yarn or string and test yourself with rows of alternate colors. If you skip releasing a stitch after you've knit into it, it'll be obvious that that had been a problem. OK, with fresh yarn, cast on 20 and put markers after stitch #1, #5, #10, #15, #19. I put more markers just to help myself keep track on large projects. They should work as well for smaller things, as training devices. Your visual groups would be 1,4,5,5,4,1 ... that may be more manageable.
8. this site may actually help you as where your extra stitches may be coming from
9. yes, I had that problem also (I wish I had Y!Answers to help me on that problem). 1)you might not always remember to take the stitches off or 2)When you wrap the yarn around the needle to knit/purl, remember that during a knit that you must keep the yarn in the front of the needles and the work and during a purl to keep the yarn in the back of the needles and work. Because of this, I would make a lot of extra stitches and this method (I think its one of the invisible increases) also concealed a lot of them so I couldn't tell that it was the problem