Knitting in round looks different from flat

#1

Hi! I’m relatively new to knitting, and this is my first post here. I didn’t see this topic posted elsewhere - hopefully it’s not a repeat.

I’m kniting my first sweater, and I noticed that the sections of stockinette where I’m knitting flat look different from those where I’m knitting in the round. In the round, all rows are uniform, but knitting flat the purl rounds seem to have one side of the V sticking up more than the other. This makes the texture of the garment change where it’s not supposed to.

I usually knit with the yarn in my left hand (Continental?) and found that if I switch the yarn to my right hand on the purl rows I can achieve the flat look of my knitting in the round.

Two questions:

  1. Can this issue with the different textures be fixed in blocking? If tried stretching and pulling while the sweater is in progress, but it doesn’t seem to help. I’m not sure if it’ll be different when the yarn is wet.
  2. Does anyone know why the purl stitches would look so different depending on which hand is holding the yarn? Theoretically it shouldn’t make a difference, right?

Thanks in advance for any answers or advice. :slight_smile:

#2

You may be wrapping your yarn the wrong' way when you purl causing the sts to be twisted and blocking won't help. You should wrap the yarn the same way around the needle as you do when you knit, but sometimes it seems easier topick’ the yarn when purling continental so many conti knitters to that and wrap the opposite direction.

#3

Thanks for the speedy response! I went back and watched the videos, and I was indeed purling the wrong way. The funny thing is that I was bringing the yarn under the needle regardless of the hand holding the yarn. Maybe I just imagined that the right handed purls looked better.

I’ve done so many projects with purl stitches - it’s a wonder I never noticed this.

So now I have an interesting dilemma. There’s a big section at the top of the sweater that I want to redo. Can you unravel from the top to save the remainder of the piece? All the discussions about frogging I’ve seen talk about unraveling from the bottom.

Thanks again for the help.

#4

You could, might not be worth the effort, and it would be easier to just start over.

#5

Ah, well. That’s disappointing. I will have knitted this thing a few times over before it’s finally done, but I know I won’t be happy if I leave it as is. It’s been a good learning process.

Thanks again for the help.

#6

Any time. that’s what we’re here for. And the enabling…