Knitting beginner - Help! I've got more stitches than when I started....

[oggsfrog]

I'm teaching myself to knit and am knitting a scarf. I'm using two yarns (an acrylic blue and a mohair greeny grey) and I cast on 16 stitches.
I'm about a foot and a half into it and a week ago committed the cardinal sin of knitting after a large quantity of wine .
I'm knitting two, purling two and had four ribs. I've realised that I now have 5 ribs (one has split into two) and four extra stitches.

Short of knitting two stitches into one to decrease by four, or unravelling (frogging?) the whole lot, is there anything I can do?

Hope this makes sense .

You can just rip it back to the point where you have the right number of stitches, you have an extra stitch because you've either had the wool at the back when you purled or you had the wool at the front when you knitted the stitch. You created a Yarn Over, in other words.

Erm...I think the only answer is to unravel............

Ranting, how do I rip it back to the point where I had the right number of stitches? I've only ever completely unravelled a piece before. I just took it off the needles and undid it (excuse non-technical terms, I really am an absolute beginner )

I wondered what a Yarn Over was . Could I have the extra stitches because a couple of times I knitted or purled each yarn individually, rather than together.....

Yes that could be the cause too. Just rip back a bit and then count the stitches when you've got the right amount then stick them back on the needles. You might go a bit past the point you went wrong at but at least you won't have to start all over again at the beginning.

So I take out the needle, pull the yarn until I'm back before my balls up error and then it's simply a matter of rethreading it all back onto the needle?

Yes, sorry, had a bit of rl stuff to attend to, that's exactly it.
When I first started I just used to rip everything right back and start again but after a while you get a bit sick of starting again, so it's good practice to rip it back to just before you made the mistake.
I'm a fairly competent knitter and recently I made a pair of socks and had to rip back a bit because I forgot to make an ankle increase, then I cocked up trying to put the stitches back on the needle, got there eventually though.

Thanks for you help. I ripped back to before the mistake and am now back in the swing.
Hopefully I'll improve enough to follow a basic pattern soon, rather than just making scarves

You're most welcome, now that you're a knitter you ought to join us on Arts and Crafts.
Bags are always a good thing to try once you're bored of scarves and there's loads of free patterns for bags just about everywhere.

haha drunk knitting i know the feeling

two things that can both be so relaxing, yet are so incompatible

I do lurk in Arts and Crafts , but everybody seems so...well....capable and skilled.
I dabble in lots of things but am not proficient at any .

Loling at capable and skilled, true the rest of them are, wouldn't actually describe myself that way and I actively join in. If you can manage to get live stitches back onto a needle without ballsing it up, that pretty much qualifies you in my book. I always tend to lose at least one stitch that way! So you have my complete and utter respect for ripping back so effortlessly.

Thanks Ranting. The scarf is almost finished - dd has claimed it so I don't need to make it as long as I was going to. Just need to learn casting off now .

I'm needlefelting a pair of dd's jeans at the moment but will need a new knitting project soon. I'm working my way through stitch 'n bitch (not necessarily in the right order ), so increasing and decreasing should be next.
I also have Happy Hooker, the crochet book, so I may have a go at crochet next. I'll have to see.

Ah crochet actually is something I'm very good at (modest? Moi?!!) so if you get stuck on that I can help.
Word of caution, the happy hooker is riddled with mistakes, the patterns are great but they are a bit hit and miss on the accuracy, so if you think something doesn't look right in the instructions, then go with your instinct. The fat bottomed bag is lovely though and I say that as someone who has crocheted 3 of them so far.

I keep adding stitches, my mum pointed out that it's because I forget to take the previous row's stitch off. She also suggested just knitting two stitches together where there are too many. However, I'm just doing knit (garter stitch) and nothing else so there isn't a pattern to lose by doing it that way, and my lovely mum ripped back a few rows and then did a little for me to put me back to the same place.

I've found a knitting group in the local library, which is handy - very patient woman who teaches kids and adults to knit.

I confidently predict you'll be running up pretty jumpers in no time E. Once you start feeling confident about knitting, you start wanting to learn and do more things.

I want to learn and do everything now. I'm becoming obsessed! Is there help for me? I blame DutchOma.

Nope, you are now lost in the knitting wilderness!!

AND she's joined Ravelry. Definitely no hope for her now
I didn't even DO anything and I still get the blame.