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Knitting Help: How to pick up a dropped stitch

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Knitting Help: How to pick up a dropped stitch
By Beverley Watts 8 years ago

If you’ve dropped a stitch in your knitting, don’t panic! Freddie Patmore shows you how to fix this simple mistake in her knitting help video below.

Once you’ve learnt how to knit, what follows is fine-tuning your technique and learning how to fix mistakes. Generally this comes with practice and experience so, in a sense, the more things that go wrong early on, the better.

Don’t be put off by errors, even the most experienced knitters (including us!) make mistakes. It’s all part of the fun and these slip-ups are usually easy to fix.

The most common thing that can go wrong is a dropped stitch, where a stitch falls off one of your needles. If you manage to catch it quickly, you can simply pick up the loop and place it back on the needle.

But if you don’t catch it quickly, dropped stitches can unravel down into the work and form ladders, just like the type you may be unlucky enough to find in a pair of tights.

How to pick up a dropped stitch
When mended correctly, you shouldn’t be able to see that a ladder ever existed. Follow our knitting help instructions below for a quick and easy solution.

All you’ll need for this technique is a crochet hook. Use one that is slightly smaller than the size of the knitting needles you are working on. It’s a good idea to invest in a few hooks and have them handy in your knitting bag for dropped stitches, even if you don’t crochet.

Pick up a dropped stitch in stocking stitch

1. Knit to the location of the ladder along your row. On the knit side, insert your hook through the loop at the bottom of the ladder from front to back.

How to pick up a dropped stitch

2. Working from the bottom of the ladder upwards, take your hook under the first available strand of yarn.

How to pick up a dropped stitch
3. Pull this loop through the loop on your hook.

How to pick up a dropped stitch
4. Repeat stages 2-3 until no strands of yarn remain and all ‘rungs of the ladder’ have been worked.

How to pick up a dropped stitch
5. Place the loop back onto the left-hand needle ready to be knitted. Continue working your row as usual.

If you are unlucky enough to have dropped your stitch on the purl side of the work, simply turn the work over and use the method shown above. Turn the work over again when you have mended the mistake and continue working along your purl row.

 

Posted in: How To