My circ's leave gaps

#1

I am so frustrated. I am knitting with (the nickle plated options on knitpicks.com) doing “magic loop” knitting…I am having these evil gaps where the yarn is split for the loops to pull through. I have tried pulling then stitches very tight when knitting near the gaps but it makes the stitches tight and the gaps seem to stay. I have tried pulling down on the work as I near the gap each time but no such luck. I have tightened up so much that the finished product has an entire vertical row that’s super snug and pops out next to a gap where it looks like a stitch was dropped and ran all the way to the bottom. :waah: I tried different circulars but the problem was worse :wall: I’m so discouraged and aggravated by this!

Oh, I tried loosening up my stitches too but it seems to not help at all or even make the gap bigger.

Anyone know what I’m missing here? :shrug:
TIA for any advice/ideas/help!

#2

Pulling your yarn tighter makes the gaps or ladders worse. What you can do is move the sts around so you don’t have the split between the same two. So when you finish up, knit a couple more sts off the other needle, then pull out the loop. Usually the ladders look worse than they are and washing or blocking the item will help. You might try using a second circ, or just using a single loop version of ML. Move the sts so they’re spread out from the left needle, and just loop out the right needle only, then knit around. This way you only have one loop and it should help the ladders.

#3

:doh: Going to try looser. :doh:

I think I am doing a one loops magic loop knitting…there’s a video of it on here…if I cast on 60 sts, I split at 30 and keep the loop in the middle. Is that single loop magic knitting? Basically there are 2 ladders-one where I actually join the two ends and one where I split the sts in the middle.

I will definitely also be moving my sts around a bit too-that’s a great idea.

I’m making wool soakers right now. The yarn says hand wash and flat dry. I can’t use machine wash wool and have it still lanolize from what I understand. I wonder if I can get away with just one delicate machine washing on this “hand wash” wool to help get rid of the ladders? Anyone know? Darest I try it? :wink:

Thanks so much for the advice…and so fast…I can pick up the sticks again once my toddler is in bed and do some playing around…gentle I will remind myself gentle…:aww:

#4

No, that’s regular ML. I think you’ve got too many sts for it, or too short a cord for that many sts. For the one loop version, don’t split the sts at 30, here’s some links for it…

http://south-mountain-naturally.blogspot.com/2009/01/tutorial-single-loop-instead-of-magic.html

#5

oh.m.g.

:hug: :notworthy:

Thank you for those links. Huge help. Goodbye ladders! I’m so happy!

:woohoo: :yay: :woot:

If i could thank you more I would! :stuck_out_tongue:

#6

I had 2 awful-looking ladders doing the magic loop technique on a very simple baby hat. I ended up adding a row of knitting from the bottom to the top on each side and it looks fine now. Seems like there’s can always be an unorthodox quality to correcting our knitting!