hi. I am very new at knitting. am just getting the knit stitch down. I want to knit in a smooth, zen-like rhythm… but sometimes my stitches on the needle are so tight I have to wrestle to get the needle through them. Any suggestions on how and how much to loosen up my stitches to make it easier and not such a chore. any help is gratefully appreciated!
Peace & happy knitting,
~ Karie
Welcome! Really the only thing you can do for sure is to try to knit more loosely. Don’t pull the yarn tight when you do each stitch. It will be slow, but concentrate on that and you’ll do fine. It just takes practice. 
When I began knitting several months ago, I had exactly the same problem. These are some hints that I was told/figured out on my own:
*If your cast on row is too tight, try using a needle 1-2 sizes bigger than what you will knit the rest of the fabric in. Then once your cast on row is done, you can start the first row of knitting with the needle size you intended to use anyway.
*When it comes to stitches being too tight in the general fabric, I learned to relax my hold on the working yarn quite a bit. This may lend inconsistency to your stitches at first, but it will certainly help you train your tension. As you practice, your tension will become more and more consistent, and you will intuitively learn what tension is right for you.
-Also when I was learning the basics, I would always try and tighten each stitch before moving onto the next. This made my knitting very tight and messy. My best advice would be to simply relax and let the yarn do what it wants to do between each stitch. The making of the next stitch tends to tighten the one before it as much as it needs to be.
*When doing garter stitch, I learned from the small project demo video on the video section here @ KH, that it is best to slip the first stitch of every row, and this will significantly tidy up your edges. An alternative is to work the first stitch extra tight, but this is less convenient.
Whatever you do, don’t get too frustrated with it. I did, and that was a huge mistake. I would go back and forth between giving up and diving in. It made it hard to remember little tricks, and bits of wisdom I’d picked up. I’d recommend a garter stitch scarf as your first project. It’s VERY simple, (only knit stitches) and long enough to give you plenty of practice, and PLENTY of room for error. Make it out of cheap yarn that you don’t care about, (red heart brand is wonderful to learn on) and don’t be tempted to unravel each time you make a mistake. As you go along you will be able to see your improvement very easily with a scarf.
Last bits of advice:
-consult the videos, and instructional aids here at KH frequently. I would still be screaming at the yarn, and unraveling every 5 minutes if I had not. And never be afraid to ask questions here. People here love to help.
-KEEP TRYING, you WILL get it.
Don’t pull the yarn after you make a stitch, the next stitch will tighten it up a little. And same thing for CO sts, don’t pull the yarn tight. Look at the knit and purl videos to make sure you’re wrapping the yarn right; if you wrap them backwards or knit into the back loop of a stitch it can twist them which makes them tighter.
Thanks! ALL your advice has helped greatly!
I used the two needle method CO and it helped Big time!
Thanks so much!!!
~Karie
Something else you can try is changing the way you put tension on the yarn. A lot of people wrap it around a finger, but when I try that it slows me down and makes the work much too tight. The amount of drag from where it runs under the palm of my hand is about right. Everybody’s different, and as long as the loops of yarn go where you want them to it’s all good!
That’s a good point. I don’t wrap the yarn around any fingers, just weave it through - over, under, over, under. It should flow smoothly through them.
I weave the yarn between my fingers & control tension by keeping my finger close together. Since I’m always willing to experiment with other ways to carry yarn. I tried wrapping it around my little finger. And then my pinky kept going numb from the wrap.
You have to play around & find something that works for you. Obviously, wrapping works for some folks. Otherwise they wouldn’t use it. Just not for me.
A lot of beginners knit too tight. Once you get used to knitting, you will relax. And the tension will be better. So just stick with it. It gets easier.
I weave the yarn between my fingers & control tension by keeping my finger close together.
Yep, that works. I found that I can move the yarn woven between my fingers and control tension that way. Closer to my hand, it’s tighter, further out toward the knuckles and it loosens up.