The most annoying mistakes you make when knitting.

Making a mistake, ignoring it, hoping it won’t show then after lots more knitting realise it sticks out like a sore thumb and having to pull it all out.

Troglodite- what is the new med if you dont mind me asking?

I am only doing a smallish chunky blanket for youngest GC (my blankets ever since lock down have become much loved in our family!) and i picked it up other day after a couple of days break from it to find it had got a bit 'wider' on one side- obviously the result of knitting when late and nodding off! I had to unravel it all and start again.! Such a waste of time.Never mind, almost halfway through again now..One of my main problems is joining colours in as i cant just 'knit it in' as im never convinced it will hold fast- so i tie a good knot which is harder to disguise in a chunky knit...🙄

Forgetting to change needle size after the rib!

LRavenscroft try starting each row with a slip stitch, you get a much neater edge.
I like to knit and read but with my latest cardigan I found I was cabling in the wrong directions and twisting stitches from the front instead of the back and vice versa. So I’m now listening to an audiobook through wireless headphones, it’s worked a treat.

Yes Witzend,
I have done both as well! So annoying!
Other annoying knitting mistakes: noticing a mistake in a pattern a few rows after and having to unpick a ladder to correct it.
Forgetting to start increases on sleeves, then having to unpick several rows only to knit them again including the increases, even more annoying as I usually knit both sleeves at the same time.
Same thing with necklines, I have carried on knitting past the point of dividing for the neck, then had to unpick, so annoying,
Still enjoy knitting though,

I used to knit fairly effortlessly, now my hands are a lot weaker and they ache, which puts me off all the counting you have to do when following a pattern! So I make mistakes, and I often can’t see what I’ve done wrong. My mum would go back rows and rows if she dropped stitches, but I don’t have the patience, I’m afraid. When I count my stitches, I never have the number remaining that the pattern says I should have.

Love it 💜

I’ve done this in the current jumper twice. I think everyone does. I’ve left them. It’s not too obvious to the untrained eye and also it makes the piece ‘mine’. Handmade and I perfect. Wonderful.

AskAlice

I just think you're all amazing to be able to knit things like cables and fancy stitches. I wish I could - purl and plain are my limit!

Cable is essentially plain and purl. Give it a try. Much more interesting than stocking stitch!

I quite often drop a stitch but dont notice for a few rows. My saviour is a small crochet needle, so much easier to make up the stitches instead of unravelling or using the knitting needle.
I once attempted a really complicated aran pattern and couldnt understand some of the instructions. I emailed the manufacturer and they had to send me another pattern that had the corrections on.

Aarrggh. I did it again- left it on a chair unsupervised and the 2 cats grabbed the ball and unravelled it all round the house.

CHARDY Thank you for the Roman’s story. Arthritis meant I could not knit for so many years but, last year, my wonderful rheumatologist prescribed a new med. And I am knitting again.
Not tried any fancy patterns which I used to find so satisfying.
So far only simple squares for a local children’s charity. A volunteer stitches donated squares into blankets. Even so, I have found the odd “twisted” stitch late on but now I can say “That’s how the Romans did it!"

The worst mistake I made in knitting was even imagining I could knit.

That's hilarious 😂

Not quite buying enough wool, with half a sleeve to go, then not being able to get the same dye batch. It showed! Only made that mistake once! I did wear the jumper - in the garden!!

Mine is probably trying to watch something needing a bit of concentration on the TV, absent, while at the same time trying to follow a pattern that goes e.g. K13, K2tog, K1, Sl1, psso, etc. , decreasing in similar fashion for the next 20 odd rows.

For TV I really should stick to my idiot-proof, all GS, no inc. or dec. blanket.

I reckon that my biggest mistake when I am knitting is pouring myself a glass of wine.

I used to have a knitting machine, but my first attempts showed that I was useless at doing the welts and ribbing round the neck. I resolved this by hand knitting them, and then attaching the hand knitted bit to the knitting machine. Suddenly I started getting fulsome compliments over my beautiful hand knitted garments………… does anyone remember June Whitfield advertising Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies? If you did, you’ll know my temptation!

Ugh, I hate 'pick up and knit' ribbing for finishing cardigans. And I can't imagine doing it with black yarn!

I have bypassed patterns in the past with those instructions, and found something with the ribbing knit along as you go. Less likelihood of getting the tension wrong as well.

Another one - when you’re working all in garter stitch, but forget and automatically start a purl row after a knit one - and don’t realise until you’ve done a third of the row.

Which is what I did earlier, while knitting a monster’s foot. 😩

Chardy, that's what I tell myself when finding a mistake, especially in ribbing. My latest knitted cardigan has a few of those. Luckily it's navy blue and doesn't notice.
Witzend, my just finished cardigan, has one of those long 'pick up and knit' button bands. 400 odd stitches. Oh I was so glad when I finished it.

shysal

My worst mistake was knitting two left fronts of a cardigan. I never did undo it and finish it!

I once binned a virtually finished long black knitted jacket that was supposed to be for my sister. There was a very long ‘pick up and knit’ strip of rib that went all up one side, round the neck, and down the other. And I just could not do it - not helped by black yarn - so difficult to distinguish stitches anyway.
Luckily it was only relatively cheap yarn.

That was my ‘best’ ever UFO (unfinished object), maybe 10 years ago now, and I haven’t had a UFO since.

CanadianGran

Ages ago on a cabled sweater for a child, I realized I had cabled the wrong way on one of the cables, but I didn't realize the mistake until the back was complete, and it was near the bottom. I'm afraid I left it....

I did the same once on a diamond eyelet pattern, where one of the yarn-overs was off by a stitch, only realized once I was nearly complete.

I believe the Romans would put a small mistake in every mosaic, as only the gods could be perfect.
Clearly all my craft work bears that in mind.

Leaving my knitting on the chair only to find one of our little cats has unravelled it and run round the house with the ball.