I like the Knitty article also, but I was pleasantly surprised when I bought Sally Melville's The knit stitch to see that she had very clear directions for repairing mistakes. I used to have the easiest method for correcting knitting booboos-- my grandmother sitting next to me! Boy do I miss her.

What a great class idea! My first year of knitting, I lived in terror of making a mistake; now I can fix almost anything, since it's all happened to me. Would have been wonderful to practice what to do in an emergency before it happened.

thankyou for posting those pics. Since hearing of twisted stitches I have been terrified of finding them in my knitting but have never known what exactly it was- i was thinking it was when the yarn gets too 'twisted' hmmm (yes I am blond). Anyway I now know what to look for.

thanks again

kate

I somehow get my stitches to twist all the time like the first example,...what am I doing wrong?

Leslie, you're probably either knitting into the back loop of your stitches or you are wrapping the wrong way. You want to make sure that when your are knitting or purling that you are going into the FRONT loop and that you wrap COUNTER-CLOCKWISE. Try a few rows that way and see if you see a difference. And don't feel bad! I know lots of people who knit the "wrong" way for a long time before realizing what they were doing. It's really easy to wrap the wrong way, especially if you're holding the yarn in your left hand.

Of course, sometimes you want to twist your stitches, to add more texture or to follow a certain pattern. And there are some people who prefer to knit this way (because it might be more comfortable or allow them to get gauge), but usually they'll wrap "wrong" on one row and then work all the stitches in the next row through the back loop to remove the twist. Cool, huh?

I also like the section in the first Stitch&Bitch book on fixing mistakes. It was quite a breakthrough when I learned to fix dropped, twisted, and wrong stitches - very empowering. Not to mention handy for when my small children decide to pull projects out of mommy's knitting bag when she's not looking, or when I have to fling down my project and dash across the room to stop my toddler from trying to eat part of a Bionicle figure.

That looked like it had to be fun... Twisting stitches? I need to look at that better.... I know I do it. Thanks for those great pictures!

I also think the idea of a class on fixing mistakes is really cool. Very often, beginners need such a class more than anthing to prevent unnecessary panic attack or discouragement. On behalf of all the lucky participants of the class, I thank you for the spirit-saving class!

That's awesome that your teaching corrections of mistakes! That will save your students sanity!

I've really been wanting to try a class like that. I just taught myself how to pick up dropped stitches, but I'm in no way comfortable with it yet. Although I did learn how to pick them up twisted also, which I was really proud of :)

My heart actually skipped a beat when I saw those pictures....glad that it was all for a good cause. Was it hard to make mistakes on purpose? I'd think it would be just as easy to accidentally knit everything *right* if you were trying to do something wrong...

The mistake that most often leads to ripping back for me is crossing a cable the wrong way, or crossing it one row too early or too late.

I have, one time, dropped the stitches let them run down to the mistake, fixed it, then worked them back up using a crochet hook.

It's skeeeeerryy! I've only done it on a piece that was really wide and ripping back would have been a great loss. On a narrow piece, I usually just rip back.

My other most hated mistake is forgetting a yarn over in lace. You find those within a row and a half, but it's still irritating.

I can relate to the delight of people learning how to fix mistakes- I've taught one friend to knit, and after she'd managed a garter stitch scarf and learnt to purl the next lesson was spotting and fixing mistakes. She really learnt how to "read" the knitting, and once she understood how the stitches should be formed she was off- I blinked my eyes and next thing I knew she's knitted a couple of gorgeous striped cushion covers!

alison, you are the best.. i so see the difference. thanks.

What a terrific class--very clever.

That sounds like a great class for all new knitters! I have a friend that is just learning to knit and all of her stitches are twisted. When I tried to explain it to her, she tells me that she likes wrapping the yarn that way and doesn't want to change.
I leaver her alone now.

I have to ask: what causes the the little hole in mistake #2? I discovered that in something I am knitting and I am not sure what I did (or how to fix it)

Okay, this has nothing to do with today's post BUT when do we get to do sockapalooza again???? Carla

Yikes, Liz, dropping down several stitches in a cable! Not for me. It's times like those that I remind myself that I enjoy knitting, so I'll surely enjoy reknitting everything I'd knitted since before I messed up the cable! ;0)

Well, Emily, the blue swatch contains several incomplete stitches. When you come across an incomplete stitch you'll have the loop from two rows before on the left needle and the yarn that should have been pulled through that loop will either be up on the needle with it or laying horizontally behind it. If it's hiding beind the loop, you probably won't notice it and will knit on normally, ending up with a loose, slightly misformed stitch, which if you look really close, you can see in the blue swatch about five stitches in from the left and one row up from the bottom (see how one stitch seems to span two rows?). Now, if that extra yarn that should have been pulled through the loop is up on the needle with the loop, you might be tempted to knit them together or knit the extra yarn and the loop separately. Doing either of these will cause a little hole and the second will actually increase your stitch count. So don't do that. You gotta fix that incomplete stitch (by pulling the extra yarn through the loop on the needle) before knitting it.

Carla, sockaplooza 2... coming soon to a Tuesday is Knitalong Day post near you!

Can you really correct those twisted stiches without ripping it all back?

Thank you Alison! I appreciate your answering my question. Now I am little smarter and will know what to look for the next time. :-)

No, Helene, I can't. Luckily, ripping is fun! ;0) And knowing how to rip carefully and put stitches back on the needle properly is a very important skill.