Hello I’ve been knitting for about 5 years now and have never had this problem before but lately my knitting seems very uneven especially the ribbing. It’s making me want to give up
Uneven knitting.
Your knitting looks very nice. The problem with “rowing out” may well even up with washing and blocking. Even just laying flat to dry may help. Basically, your purl tension is enough different from your knit tension that it shows.
There are a few suggestions here that may help.
Usually paying more attention to each stitch at least for the next project helps. I’ve also seen the suggestion to knit in the round so that you’re always knitting with no purling. That only works so far and then you’re eventually knitting flat somewhere.
For the ribbing, see if this helps:
Hello
Is it just this project? Have you perhaps changed the yarn type that you’re working with? If the yarn is say a cotton or cotton mix the tension might be harder to keep even if you usually use wool or acrylic for instance.
Hello katieanne,
I have been knitting for a long time and I have found that my knitting sometimes changes. For instance, about ten years ago I could knit perfect 1x1 ribbing. But then for some reason it started to get really messy. But I found that I could still knit 2x2 ribbing, so I switched to that.
Having said that, I don’t think your knitting looks terrible. Your ribbing is a little bit uneven, but I’ve seen much worse (mine!), and you do have some rowing out in your stockinette. But these may become much less obvious after the garment has been washed and worn a few times. You might also find the ribbing improves if you gently stretch it on the diagonal in both directions.
salmonmac has given you some good resources that might help you fix these problems. But if you find you can’t fix the problems, please don’t let it stop you knitting. I spent about a month trying to fix my 1x1 ribbing, but nothing helped, and I ended up crying over yet another wonky 1x1 swatch, feeling totally stressed instead of enjoying it. So I thought “This is ridiculous - I am making myself miserable”. And I switched to 2x2 ribbing and stopped worrying about it.
To avoid “rowing out”, you could try knitting in the round so you are always doing knit rows. If you aren’t happy with your 1x1 ribbing, you could try 2x2.
One other thought is that the yarn and needles can make a difference. I sometimes find when I am knitting flat pieces on circulars that they don’t give the knitting the support it would have on straight needles, and my tension goes wonky at the sides. I also struggle to keep a good tension in cotton as opposed to wool.
What are you making?
Cheers,
Sarah
Oh, I just remembered one more thing. For most knitters, rowing out is caused by their purl rows being looser. But for a few, it’s their knit rows that are looser.
To work out which is happening, make two swatches with the same number of stitches. One where you knit every row, and one where you purl every row. They will both be garter stitch, but constructed different ways. (Purling every row feels really weird!)
You will see that one swatch is bigger than the other. If your all-purl swatch is bigger, that means you purl looser than you knit. If your all-knit swatch is bigger, that means you knit looser than you purl.
You can try this exercise again after you work on your “rowing out” and see whether the swatches come out closer in size.
Good luck!
Thank you! I’ll take a look at them and hopefully they help! I’m making a baby cardigan today in grey and the ribbing seems so much better. I’m hoping it was just something with the pink and blue yarn. Also just to add I’m in the middle of blocking the cardigan and the ‘rowing’ has evened out a bit. When I’m finished I’ll put the cardigan on here thank you for your help
It’s been the last 3-4 projects which I have been using the same pink yarn so maybe that could be it! But I only used Marriner yarns which this is as well. I seem to have the same problem with the blue yarn from there as well. I’m making a baby cardigan in the grey yarn today and the ribbing is so much better
I’m glad someone else has experienced this! It seems to be the last month or two that my knitting is messy. Thinking about it I have only been using pink and blue yarn but today I’ve switched to grey to make a baby cardigan and the ribbing looks so much better! I’m hoping it was just the yarn. Also I’m using smaller needles for the ribbing which I’m going to continue using for now on even if the pattern calls for bigger, it seems to make the world of difference! I’m think about going back and fixing the ribbing so I’m more happy with the project:) Thank you for asking what I’m making! I’m making a half blue and pink flower cardigan based on a cardigan I saw online
I’m not greatly experienced in knitting, but just from what experience I do have, I found a very noticable difference in working different colours of the same brand/yarn a couple of years ago when I started knitting properly. It was an acrylic sweater in several colour stripes. The blue felt stiffer and thicker whilst the yellow felt more floppy and ‘thin’, the mid colours felt in-between. I found it quite strange but now i just put it down to the effect of the dye. So, whilst it might be expected that chunky works up differently to dk, or one brand different to another, we t3nd to expect the same yarn and same brand to work up the same but I personally feel that colour can also add a difference.
There are some great video tutorial tips on making ribbing neater. I now use a needle smaller than the pattern calls for (say it’s rib in 3.5mm and body in 4mm I might drop the rib to 3mm or 2.75mm, I test it out with the yarn to see what looks and feels best) and I might need to change the stitch count of the rib section if I use a smaller needle to ensure I still come up the right size with the tighter rib. Depending on the yarn and how things are looking I might also tug my yarn on each purl for the rib, whilst it is slower and feels less natural to stop and give it an extra tug its only the rib section, I don’t do this through the whole project.
I also sometimes change the rib stitch, like kushami said, sometimes a different rib stitch looks nicer anyway with a certain project, and wider ribbing has more bounce and more ability to return to its original shape/size after being stretched to put a garment on which is no bad thing.