The most annoying mistakes you make when knitting.

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!

If you can knit and purl you can do cables and fancy stuff. Basically there are only two stitches, K and P. Youtube has loads of useful videos showing you what to do.

Betty18

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.

I read somewhere that it's only God that is allowed to create perfection so it's OK to have some mistakes in something you've made! I'm not religious but I quite like this idea.

Ah yes, and I now know never to knit anything remotely complicated if watching a foreign language film when the subtitles are very much necessary. One cannot concentrate properly on both - it addles the brain.

I haven't mastered how to pick up dropped stitches so unravel and regret it

I have made a lot of mistakes like puff sleeves on top of a red cardi , buying 3 balls of lovely purple mohair too crochet a poncho from a charity shop for £3 then discovering I had run out of yarn to finish it by a long way so had to spend about £18 on more yarn to finish it so not so much a bargain .

I've been knitting for 60 years but never checked tension or pinned out the completed garment either and things have always turned out ok. Does pinning out really make a difference?

This thread has made me feel so much better. I thought I was the only one who made mistakes knitting,

So many over the years...
the casual jumper for my GS which didn't have any rib in the pattern and therefore ended up with the back sewn in upside-down

mis-reading a pattern and ending up with a cardigan half round and half v neck. I did realise in time to put that one right!

and more dropped stitches than I care to remember

but the biggest one I think was buying some trendy dark needles and using them to knit navy blue yarn in the winter. Almost impossible to see the stitches!

Not being satisfied with the piece and starting again…and again…and again

I first learnt how to knit on 4 needles way back over 83 years ago in the shelter during WW2. Knitting socks, balaclavas and mittens for the troops. I was 9 years old then.

If a stitch was dropped it was picked up with a fine crochet hook and once put back on the needle it was not visible.

I used to love doing Entrelac knitting but as I got older my fingers seized up and I started dropping the needles and pulling the stitches off which made it very painful and awkward trying to get them back on the needles again.

My fingers are not nimble now like they used to be and I miss being kept busy and can only be thankful that I can still use my middle finger of my right hand to type messages on my computer.
My d-i-l now has the first set off knitting needles that I learnt to knit with all those years ago.

Being one stitch short on a lace pattern in a shawl, where it matters that things aren't lining up....and not being able to find out where it has gone missing!!

Oh yes!! I was once knitting a shawl in the most beautiful gradient yarn, and that happened when I'd hit about 450 stitches. The whole section of lace was out, and not only could I not spot where it had happened, but there was no chance of dropping back a stitch and fixing it. It never got finished, and I'd put sooo much work into the thing.

I was teaching my little daughter how to knit when my son asked me to teach him. My husband not to be left out joined in. The first thing he knitted was complete layette for his sisters baby (the days before baby grows). After that he knitted all his own sweaters and socks.

Not my mistake but my Mums, she was knitting pair of double knit slipper type things, the pattern read "knit twelve rows in st st", Mum read it as "knit twelve inches in st st", she handed me this large piece of odd shaped knitting and said something like "I don't know where I've gone wrong with this", after reading the pattern we all had a good laugh, it took quite a while for her to live that one down.

I started knitting the 2nd frog’s back leg the other night - did 4” of the required 6” of st st - before realising that I was using 4mm needles, instead of the 5mm I’d used for the other.😩

Still haven’t unravelled and started again.

ronib

My biggest error is not checking the tension so often end up with a huge garment !

Yeah, my Mum used to not check the tension and we ended up in some funny looking jumpers😂
Talking of knitting I always wonder what that woman on Gogglebox is making ( sits next to her DH on sofa) the whole place is full of knitted stuff.