Last night I was trying to do a slip, slip, knit decrease and for the life of me I could not get my right needle through that little stitch hole that it is supposed to go through after throwing the yarn over the needle. I am finding that my knitting is tight. Do you think that is the reason?
tight knitting makes all decreases hard, (some seem harder than others.)
why do you knit tight?
some knitters are fearful that the stitches will slip off the needle (and pull the yarn tight)
some knitters tend to work on the tips of the needles (with pencils, you use the tips–with knitting needles, you use the shaft (not tapered tips) to make the stitch
some knitter are just using the wrong size needle (to get gauge.) knitting tight on a 'suggested size 6" rather than easier on a size 5…
IF you identifiy your knitting as tight… well there is one place to start, to resolve the issue.
think about what you do as you knit, think about what you can do to change it.
you might always be a tighter than average knitter, but you can learn to knit with more ease–enough to make decreases easier!
It’s your knitting… and to some degree, it’s your problem (or not–it could just be your style!) but if tight knitting is creating problems for you… ONLY YOU can decide what you need to do to change your knitting and resolve your problem!
Could be. Once you re-align the stitches by slipping as if to knit, the hole through the back loops should be bigger than if you are doing a straight K2tog. You should always be able to move your stitches on your needles pretty easily. If you can’t and really have to pull them off, you’re knitting too tightly. You don’t need to pull each stitch tightly after you knit it.
Grip your needles firmly, but not tight. “Tension” refers to the flow of the yarn from the ball through your hands. Don’t carry that tension through to the stitches. And make sure that when you are making your stitches you are making them on the thicker parts of the needles, not on the tips, that will make the stitches too tight and they won’t slide easily on and off the needles. Insert the right needle into the stitch on the left so that both thicker parts of the needle are touching before you make your stitch, that way you are creating the biggest hole to pull the stitch through.
And, as always, practice makes perfect. You’ll get it.
Look at the purl video to see how you wrap the yarn around the needle. If you wrap it opposite, the stitches on the next row will be tight and if you knit them in the front loops they twist.
I had so many problems when I started knitting with that first stitch being loose and also with having too much thread between the needles, that I just pull everything tight. I am going to back off a little and see if that fixes this problem.
I’ve been doing more shrugs with lace and socks too and at first the ssk was tight for me and k2tog, I just about hated that and sometimes still do but if you just practice it will come really quick. You could try doing a row with some other yarn, just doing those for a few rows ssks I mean and then you’ll have it. It’s just an adjustment thank goodness, not like learning to read one of those crazy complicated charts that I’ve yet to learn! good luck
The first stitch (or the last one on a row) is almost always loose. But you only need to pull the first one a little tighter and not the rest and even when you don’t, generally after a few more rows, it doesn’t seem as loose. It just needs to have other stitches attached to it.
One thing nobody has mentioned yet- try going sliding the stitch closer to the point where the needle is more narrow when going in- it will give you more room to get in there. Needles that are well tapered and pointy are better for getting into the stitches for decreases.
Some people do knit tightly and do fine. It hurts my hands to do things tightly. Those loose stitches do tend to tighten up after a few rows!