Stitch mayhem!

[cakesandphotos]

So this afternoon I've been teaching myself to knit. Thanks goodness for YouTube! My mum tried to teach me years ago to no end so I'm pretty pleased with my progress. However, I started with 25 stitches, went down to 23 at one point and now I'm up to 28! I get how I could be dropping them but I'm not sure how I'm gaining them.
Anyone had the same problem? I can't fix it until I can work out how the heck I'm doing it!
Thanks

When you're a beginner it's easy to mistake the space between stitches for a dropped stitch, I did that a lot. Also you may be wrapping the yarn around the needle in between stitches.

I've just started too and find that I sometimes add a stitch when I poke the needle through the wrong hole. Instead of poking it through a hole immediately next to the other needle, I sometimes accidentally put it through a loop next to it. This somehow makes two stitches out of one...

Sorry, can't explain very well because I'm that rubbish myself...

Actually, I might be sticking my needle through the yarn and splitting it.

Or a combination of both.