Putting stitches back correctly on the needle

Hi everyone,

I have the dumbest of questions. When you make a mistake on a row, and unravel a few stitches to put them back on the needle and start again, how do you make sure that you’re putting them back correctly?

I’ve been knitting for just over a year now, self-taught, and I feel like I’m missing some very basic, fundamental stitch architecture knowledge or instinct. Sometimes, I can “feel” that something isn’t right as the stitch is clearly too tight, so I change its orientation somehow until it feels good on my needle. But visually, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t “see” the stitch. Also, I never saw the difference between a twisted knit stitch and a normal knit stitch, except on ribbing. I do know how to make a twisted stitch intentionally. But if I make one twisted knit stitch by mistake on a plain stockinette fabric, I just don’t see it.

Any resource to help me acquire that very basic knowledge? I’m not sure which key words to use when searching for information on YouTube because it’s so generic yet very specific. I purchased a subscription to TKGA and have been digging into old issues of Cast-On Magazine, but nothing came up so far.

That’s a very good question. Yes, you can often feel that the stitch mount in incorrect but it would be better to get the sts back on the needle correctly to begin with.
This video starts at about 2:00 minutes and shows what the correct stitch mount is.

If I need to take out one row I work it this way, tinking.


If I sadly need to take out more than one row, I pull out the needles and rip out to about a row before I want the sts back on the needle. Then I pull out the yarn inserting the needle as I do so, one stitch at a time. This maintains the stitch mount.
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Thank you so much! Both videos were immensely helpful - such simple, basic things, yet I couldn’t understand them properly and it really annoyed me :wink: The great thing is that I’ll probably get to practice these all the time. I’ll keep those videos on my browser for the next few days/weeks and voilà!

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