Please help me with knitting! (Pics attached)

[CaughtInTheCovid]

Hello, I’m trying to knit a stripy blanket/scarf (am a very new knitter!)

When I’m going going from one colour to the other sometimes the stitch where you can see the previous colour still showing is on one side of the blanket sometimes it’s on the other. I want to keep them all on one side so that the top of the blanket the lines look really neat colour by colour. I don’t understand why sometimes they’re on one side sometimes the other as I always try to keep the blanket in the same position when I finished one line and go onto the next one.

How do I do it?!

Sorry if it’s really unclear I’m not down with the knitting lingo yet 😂

It’s because you’re changing colours after an uneven number of rows. If you did even numbers of rows (eg. stripes of 2 or 4 rows) those lines would all be on the wrong side. This is what happens when you do garter stitch (knit every row, so they look like knit stitches on the right side and purl stitches on the other side).

You've changed colour at bother ends - as in both onto the left needle and the right. You need to be consistent. The rear will always have a row of one colour cast onto a row of the new colour, but the top side should be ok if you're consistent when changing colour.

Yes, your stripes are an equal number of rows. They need to be the same, or at least you need to go up in twos so you always cast a new colour on on the same edge.

Are not and equal number

As the others have said, it’s because you’re changing colours unevenly. You need to maker get stripes consistent, changing colour only after a even number of rows. They don’t have to be the same width, you could do two one colour, four rows the next but all need to be an even number of rows.

It's a little tricky to explain without prodding the knitting, but try this...

If you call the first row you knit, Row one or R1, the right side and the second row you knit, Row two or R2, the wrong side, then all rows that are an odd number are the right side and all rows you knit with an even number are the wrong side (people who use patterns more than me, please correct for usage).

If you change colour when always knitting an odd row or always change on an even row, the bits that show the colour change will be on the same side. If you don't keep to that but sometimes change on an odd row and then next an even row, then the colour change will not always be on the same side.

If you always knit an even number of rows before changing colour, then the change will show on the same side. If you always knit an odd number of rows or if you change the depth of the stripes around and knit sometimes odd and sometimes even number of rows, then the colour change will show both sides.

Have you been on Ravelry? It's a knitting site with about a gazillion users and a greater percentage than average of kind and helpful people.

I hope that is helpful. Also, respect going for colour changes as I have been knitting for years and I avoid it.

Good luck.

You need to make stripes consistent

That explains it! Thanks so much. Time for another attempt!

It’s more confusing when you’re working with garter stitch (knitting all the rows) because both sides look the same. But knitting always has a right side (the front) and a wrong side (the back). If you were doing garter stitch all in one colour you wouldn’t know which was the right or wrong side and it wouldn’t matter, but if you are changing colours you’ll always get these lines on the wrong side. Even numbers of rows will solve it, or call it a design feature 😬

You could do stockinette instead (knit one row, purl one row) but the edges will curl.

When you cast on, you will have left a tail of wool. You can make sure that you are always changing colour after an even number of rows by making sure you always change at the side with the wool tail.

@user1495884620 ah amazing tip I will use that! Thanks @SinkGirl I haven’t even tried purling yet 😂 it takes 100% concentration to knit currently so ill give that a go next!

You’ll get there! I leant when I was about 30 and took me ages to get it. Then I switched from english knitting (holding yarn in right hand) to continental knitting (holding yarn in left hand) and I found it so much easier, especially purling.

Now I can knit anything you can think of, and then I learnt to crochet and now design crochet patterns too. It’s always hard at first but once you’re off, you’ll be fine.

There’s really only a few things you need to learn before you can knit anything - knit, purl, yarn over, then different ways of increasing or decreasing but there are so many videos for any stitch you might need, so it’s really easy to try any pattern really.