Mystery stitches

I received an email from a new knitter who was knitting a scarf. She was surprised to discover that her simple straight scarf had become zig-zaggy. She had started with twenty stitches. Sometimes her stitches grew to be forty stitches. Sometimes her stitches shrunk to be twenty stitches. What was happening?

I call this the Case of the disappearing/reappearing stitches. There are many suspects in this case. The decreasing could have been caused by dropping a stitch. However, this suspect leaves a smoking gun. In most cases when you drop a stitch it causes a hole to appear in your knitting. Decreasing can also be cause by actually knitting two stitches together. Increasing can be caused by mistaking a loop for a stitch or knitting into one stitch twice. Beware those disappearing/reappearing stitches. Avoid them by counting your stitches regularly.

Every knitter errs

It is the wise knitter

who learns from them.