I’m a beginner at knitting and I’ve been knitting a scarf. I’ve noticed that there are gaps between my rows of stitches—not holes, but just yarn that is stretched further apart. Like this:
The yarn between the rows of stitches is stretched and so the rows are further apart, especially compared to at the start of my scarf, where my rows were surprisingly compact:
At first I thought I just had to knit tighter/pull the yarn harder whenever I’d transferred a stitch, but I’ve tried that for a couple of rows and it doesn’t seem to have decreased the space between them. I guess there’s something I’ve unconsciously been doing differently compared to when I first started knitting my scarf. Can anyone tell me what it is and how to fix this?
Welcome to KH!
You’re knitting looks remarkably even in general. The widened gap between rows may just be differences in tension. As you knit more, these differences usually go away. Tension is not so easy to work at but seems to come after time knitting.
Washing and maybe blocking when you finish will probably even this out a bit.
Your tension has changed. This is very common with beginners — and more experienced knitters too!
When you start a project, you are very conscious about your tension on the yarn, and you are concentrating very hard. But as you relax and get comfortable with the knitting (especially on garter stitch), you will also relax JUST A LITTLE on the yarn and you will get more spacing happening.
That is good that you have noticed that! Most other knitters don’t see it. So now you need to be very conscious of how much tension you put on the yarn when you start and to be consistent THROUGHOUT the rest of your project! That is not going to be easy!
One thing I do is knit a smaller piece first – just to get the hang of it – and then go on to this main one. That way, you will get all the beginning tension out of the way, and concentrate on your more relaxed tension of the later rows. Just a little trick to be more consistent.
But the key is to be always consistent in how you hold the yarn, and how tightly you are holding that yarn. It’s very subtle, and will get better as you gain experience. Working on a pattern with more stitch definition (not garter or stocking stitch) will hide a lot of inconsistencies. Leave garter for later on.
And yes, always wash all of your knitting at the end. It will even out your stitches 110%!! I just put a few drops of detergent in the sink, and let them soak for at least 20 min…and then they have a chance to spread that uneven tension over all the stitches in a row… But it won’t wash out all the unevenness!! Just keep practicing!!!
