After unraveling, how do I find my row?

#1

I just started knitting a few months ago and have the great help of an upstairs neighbor, a lady who’s been knitting for about half-century. (You should see her baby blankets!) But she’s not always around when something goes wrong, so I’m really glad to find this group and hope you can help me.

I started with simple patterns, making some afghan squares with basic combos of knit/purl type of things.

Now I’ve gotten ambitious and tackled a pattern in book she gave me. It throws in YarnOver and Knit 2 together in the pattern. I started making a scarf and I even added in an extra color.

So I had three rows of white and started to add three rows of the green. I think I’ve unraveled and restarted the green section three times now.:-x She just gave me some dividers and that helped (I thought)! :wink:

Well, I was JUST at the end of the third green section and realized all the rows were opposite: I had all the wrong side stuff showing up on the right side. ARGH!

So, I started tearing out again…and I can’t figure out where I’ve landed. Every even row from 4 to 8 is K1, then P41, then K1, so just seeing that pattern doesn’t tell me if I’m on row 4, 6 or 8. And I can’t figure out how to discern which part of the pattern I’m in.

Is there any easy way to count rows? Anything else that might help me figure out where I am? HELP!

Thanks. I look forward to be part of this forum more. And hopefully when I have better contributions to make. Thanks!

#2

I know it is frustrating when unraveling work… What kind of stitch are you doing? Garter or Stockinette? If it is garter count the ridges (bumpy lines) on the right side of the fabric. Every ridge is two rows. Since you are still learning let me suggest a safety line. It helped me when I was learning and still helps me when I have pattern changes. There is a video posting of it on this site. When I was learning I would use it every ten rows so if i dropped a stitch or added one i could unravel my work without losing a lot. Hope it helps. The videos on this site were a life saver.:hug:

#3

What about the odd rows, are they different? You can rip back so you’re at the end of an even row (k1, p41, k1) and look at the RS rows to see where you should be.