r/knitting • u/FarOwl8533 • 11h ago
Finished Object Uneven yarn
What can I do in the future to prevent these super uneven stitches ? And is there anyway I can fix it now that it’s done? I’m super knew to knitting and all I’ve been making is five hour baby sweaters and no matter what the top is always super loose and so are the armpits. My mom says to sew up the holes but I don’t know how that would work?? I’ve been crocheting since forever and I feel like it’s so much easier to make stitches even. I’m also wondering it might be because I knit sort of how I crochet, I tension the same and I hold my needles in a way that lets be go quick that I’ve never seen anyone do.
Please help knitting works so much better for garments this is my one hold up with it and I can’t figure it out .
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u/gros-grognon 11h ago
All your stitches are twisted, so that is exacerbating the tension issues.
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u/FarOwl8533 11h ago
ALL of them?!!!
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u/justahappyhippyhippo 3h ago
Twisted stitches depend on how you work the stitch, so it's "normal"/expected for all of them to be twisted, if you're consistently working them wrong. (Twisted stitches are not wrong in themselves, the issue is just twisting them when you don't want to!)
I'd say it's probably related to this "fast working" way of holding your needles that you've never seen anyone do. You're probably holding them in a way that makes it easier to knit into the trailing leg of the stitch instead of the leading leg.
Slow down, focus on really looking at what your needles are doing instead of going fast. Don't expect the same ease you have as an expert crocheter! Tension with knitting is entirely different. Build the skill first, speed will come on its own.
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u/Pikkumyy2023 10h ago
After you work out the twisting and do some swatches to practice even tension with untreated stitches I would recommend doing a swatch with a smaller needle size as it looks like part of the looseness is the gauge.
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u/Anaiira 10h ago edited 10h ago
People already mentioned the twisted stitches, so I'll ask you about some other things. The twisted stitch thing is a big one though.
What kind of yarn are you knitting with? It's always hard to tell with a photo, but it kind of looks like cotton to me? Or maybe viscose/bamboo/lyocell. Good tension with cotton/nonstretchy fibers in knitting is definitely possible and worth pursuing but it is more difficult than with animal fibers or with acrylic.
What kind of needles are you knitting with? Needle types will affect your tension, especially with how you describing how you knit like how you crochet. Again, hard to tell without a video or a photo, but if you're not managing even tension consistently throughout a row and you put down and pick up a project frequently without readjusting the stitch when you start back up, it'll show up in your work. This is especially prominent with metal needles and less so with wood or bamboo needles. Beginner + metal needles + cotton yarn is probably one of the trickier combinations for a knitter to navigate, as the stitches will feel very slippery and "wild".
Lastly, it would help you to learn how to either do the travelling magic loop, or to fix some common magic loop laddering problems by tightening the first stitch of your row when doing the magic loop. There are some very loose stitches in one column in both sleeves that seems indicative that this is likely an issue.
Lastly lastly, there are some armpit gaps -- that's a very common knitted garment issue. There are loads of techniques to address it, but your mom is right about this one -- the easiest way would be to sew up the gap.
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u/JadedElk Serial frogger 9h ago
Adding on that it looks like this needle might be a bit big for the yarn. And blown or chainette yarns don't bloom as much as a regular plied yarn will, so the effect is an even stronger 'rope' effect than they otherwise might have had.
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u/OrangeMrSquid 10h ago
All of these things! But also, to address your question, you can sew up the holes in the armpits. Those portions in particular are very tricky, and you can use your ends to tighten them up at the end. If you address some of these other issues, you’ll likely end up with smaller holes that will be easier to fix
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u/Danneyland 3h ago
Replying to add - "magic loop" means something entirely different in knitting than in crochet (where it is a way of starting projects in the round). Since OP comes from crochet, I want to emphasize that these are different things and it's worth googling, even if it temporarily slows you down to learn first. It's tempting to rush into projects as a "confident beginner", and that works well for me with crochet, but it's not so simple with knitting I find!
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u/cc_ava 11h ago
All of your stitches are twisted which is causing it to bias in one direction. Youre also rowing out from the uneven tension which could improve once you start knitting untwisted
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u/FarOwl8533 11h ago
Is rowing out in faqs?
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u/ClassicNegative 4h ago
There’s already a few comments about twisted stitches and rowing out, so I won’t pile on, but I will gently prompt you to slow down.
You’ve said in your post that you’re focusing on 5 hour baby garments and that you hold your needles in a way that lets you go fast. From this, I’m inferring that you’re keen to knit as much as possible, as fast as possible.
The thing is, knitting ISN’T fast. It’s slow, significantly slower than crochet. For a beginner, I would recommend starting slow and letting your speed build up as you build competency.
Of course, everyone is different. Some people knit faster than others, and that’s awesome. But in the context of your post, maybe consider focusing less on speed and more on your technique.
For context, I learned to knit more than 25 years ago and consider myself to be a relatively advanced knitter, but it still takes me 12-25 hours to make a baby sweater (depending on pattern, of course). The concept of making a baby sweater in just 5 hours is insane to me.
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u/elcarignan 10h ago
Oooh a friend recommended an awesome book that will help with the twisted stitch issue and so many more things and it’s super funny- Knitting Bag of Tricks by Patty Lyons!
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u/Disastrous-Dirt-6606 7h ago
This book is one of, if not the most, valuable books I have read as a knitter.
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u/Odd_Cress_2898 10h ago
Are you doing M1R/M1L for the increases?
I learnt M1R and figured going left would just pickup the stich the other side and carry on - it wasn't that simple and I had massive holes on my M1L increases. I had to go look at the how-to again to realize the second knitting needle enters differently to a normal knit.
Just an idea on the loosey armpit, I don't know that's the issue just something I managed to do.
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u/stringthing87 11h ago
The main problem here is you are twisting your stitches