Dropped Stitches: Diagnose, Prevent & Fix Them
This post shares how to diagnose, prevent and fix dropped stitches in knitting.
If you didn’t use a point protector or your needles were flying so fast that you didn’t see that one stitch slip off, you might have dropped one or a few knit stitches.
Knit Errors And How to Prevent And Fix Them
This is one of 5 posts that address certain knit errors; how to diagnose, prevent, and fix them. See the other posts here:
Diagnosis
A dropped knit stitch is fairly easy to diagnose…it’s when you see a ‘run’ in your knitting similar to that you would see in a nylon run.
See those ‘ladder rungs’? Not only do they tell you that you may have a problem, but they also make it easy to fix it!
Table of Contents
Prevention
- Hold your work out and admire it frequently, making it likely you’ll catch a mistake sooner.
- Count your stitches frequently.
- Use point protectors.
Fixing A Dropped Stitch
Whatever you don’t panic! For the most part, stitches that have dropped off a needle are easily remedied.
Keep in Mind: Just as when you are knitting you keep the working yarn in the back when you are picking up knit stitches keep the rungs in the back of the stitch and pull them through the stitch. If your ladder rungs are in front of your stitch and you pull them through towards the back, you will make a purl stitch.
Tip:
It’s handy to keep several different sizes of crochet hooks on hand. When fixing a dropped stitch, use a hook close to the size of your needles.
Holding your knitting with the knit side facing you, use a crochet hook (or your fingers if they are skinny and dexterous) and put it through the dropped stitch, from front to back.
Grab the first ‘rung’ on the ladder of dropped stitches with your crochet hook. Make sure your ‘rungs’ aren’t crossed with each other.
Pull the ladder rung stitch through the stitch.
Then turn your crochet hook and repeat this process for every ‘rung’ on the ladder.
Put the stitch back on your right-hand needle, with the right leg facing towards you.
Ta-Da!
Want some homework? Sure you do!
It’s easy to panic when you are in the midst of a wonderful project when you notice a ‘run’ in your work. In order to avoid that panic and get comfortable with fixing dropped stitches in the future, work a swatch and then intentionally drop the stitch. When it gets a couple of rungs down, fix it! I think you’ll be surprised how easy it is to do and your confidence as a knitter will dramatically increase.
If you want to learn how to knit or are looking to brush up on your knitting skills and knowledge, pop over to the How to Knit page, which houses all of the posts that teach knitting skills. Or, you could go ahead and visit each one by clicking the links below.
All About Knitting
- All About Yarn, including different fibers and weights, how to read a yarn label, and a Yarn Weights Chart
- All About Knitting Needles, including material, sizes, styles, and a Needle Conversion Chart.
- How to Cast On Using the Long-Tail Method, including calculating how much yarn is needed to cast on and how to make a slip knot.
- How to Knit the Knit Stitch
- How to Knit the Purl Stitch
- How to Knit the Seed Stitch
- How to Bind Off, including how to weave in your loose ends.
- How to Read a Knit Pattern, including a Common Knitting Abbreviations Chart.
- This simple Garter Knit Dishcloth will let you put all your new skills to good use!
- How to Block Your Knitting.
- Common Knit Errors; How to Prevent or Diagnose and Fix Them
- Join yarn using the Russian Join
- How to seam pieces of knit fabric with the Mattress Stitch (for sweaters, tops, pillows, etc…)
- How to Knit in the Round with Circular Needles
- How to Knit in the Round with Double-Pointed Needles
- How to Knit in the Round using the Magic Loop Technique.
- Organize Your Knitting with these free printables.
- Check out our Gift Ideas for Knitters.
To refer back to this post on Dropped Stitches in the future, bookmark this page or pin it for your future reference.
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