How to: avoid accidental increases

It can be easy to create extra stitches, either by splitting your yarn or with extra yarn overs on your needle, so here are the telltale signs to watch out for.

Take care when working with loosely twisted yarns, as it is easy for your knitting needle to split this type of strand.

Accidental increases can be very noticeable, especially in a smooth stocking stitch fabric, so it’s usually best to rectify them and be able to keep to the pattern. Having extra stitches will make your knitting wider, so if you’re piecing two sections together you may end up with a slightly gathered edge to get them to fit. If you’ve carried on knitting along the row, work back by unpicking (tinking) your stitches one by one. The best way to do this is to insert the left-hand needle into the loop under the knit stitch on the right-hand needle from front to back and transfer it back to the left-hand needle. This avoids twisting any stitches. The stitch that was on the right-hand needle will be undone, and you’ll need to tighten the slack working yarn every couple of stitches.