When I was a newbie knitter I always dropped stitches. I used to be scared to find a dropped stitch because that meant that I had to tink or frog my work to get to my mistake. And heaven forbid I rip the stitch down a few more rows while I was tinking or frogging. They used to give me anxiety because until it was fixed so much more could go wrong. Finally I wised up and found a few videos on how to fix dropped stitches. This was a few years ago and now I don’t sweat dropped stitches.
About a year ago while up north visiting my parents, my mom kept complaining that she hated the yarn she was using. It was making her sock feel all weird and it was knitting up poorly. So I took a look at it (because clearly I’m an expert hahahaha) and I noticed a few dropped stitches along the way. Maybe it was the yarn because my mom is a veteran knitter. She’s been knitting since before I was in diapers. She can whip up a sweater faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. And to my surprise she was going to rip out the sock because she didn’t know how to fix or pick up the dropped stitches.
So I’m going to show you how to fix dropped stitches in stockinette. All you need is a crochet hook. You don’t need any crochet experience you only need the crochet hook.
Dropped Stitches in Stockinette:
- Knit to the column of stitches where your dropped stitch should be.
- Using your crochet hook and with the right side of your work facing you insert the hook into the dropped stitch from the front of your work.
- Pick up the next row (it will be a straight line of yarn where a stitch should be) with your hook and pull it through the first stitch you picked up.
- Continue in this fashion until you reach the last stitch.
- Place stitch onto your left needle and continue knitting your project.
I still haven’t mastered picking up dropped stitches in garter and that’s due to the fact that I rarely knit plain garter stitch. I prefer stockinette. And I have yet to drop a stitch working with garter (fingers crossed it doesn’t happen now).
How do you fix dropped stitches?
Happy Knitting,
Ashley
