My favorite thing to knit are gloves and mittens, and the occasional amigurumi, which means I often have to pick up stitches at thumb gussets or mitten flaps, etc. I must be doing it wrong though because my picked up stitches are always backwards and twisted (maybe that’s the same thing), so I end up having to purl when the pattern says to knit.
I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, and it’s driving me nuts! Has anyone else had this problem, and how have you solved it?
When picking up sts, always pick up from the right side. This will put the seam on the wrong side of your work (inside of mittens).
After picking up sts, when you work the actual row for the first time, check to make sure the sts aren’t twisted. When you get to a twisted st, just slide it off your left needle, untwist it and slide it back onto your left needle before working it. These twisted sts happen if you wrapped the yarn backwards when you made the pick up st.
If you find yourself having to purl rather than knit, then you are on the wrong side of your work. i.e. you are working on the inside of the round rather than on the outside of the round. Either turn the round inside out to get on the right side (not always possible/practical), or turn the work (like you were doing a short row) and continue on the outside of your round.
Pick up and knit can also be done as pick up knitwise. You can pick up the sts from L to R with the left needle and ‘knit’ them off the needle, but it’s easier to insert the R needle into the sts from R to L and ‘knit’ them by wrapping the yarn around the needle and pulling through. Do this with the RS facing you and hold the edge to be picked up as if it was the L needle.
Stitches look like little horseshoes on the needle. They are angled about forty-five degrees. English and Continental knitters will have them oriented to the left. Here’s a video which might explain it better. If you’re an English or Continental knitter, ignore the directions for Eastern European knitting. The stitch orientation part in the beginning of this video is well worth looking at for any new knitter.