How to Pick Up Dropped Stitches in Your Knitting
November 7, 2017
Beginning knitters very often will confront dropped stitches at some point in their knitting. This can strike fear in them, if they don’t know how easily this situation is rectified. Even several rows of dropped stitches is not a problem to fix. Below I show you how to pick up single dropped stitches and then I show you how to pick up several dropped stitches.
I thought about breaking this post into two different posts, one for knit stitches and one for purl stitches but then I decided to do it all in one single post. So this post is long. If you are only interested in how to pick up dropped purl stitches, scroll halfway down the post for that. I do knit stitches in the first half of the post and purl stitches in the last half. I also have a video in the post to help you.
It helps to knit a swatch of stockinette and practice dropping and picking up stitches, until you are completely comfortable doing it.
Knitting without fear!
PICKING UP DROPPED KNIT STITCHES:
First, you need to know a knitting fundamental – how a stitch should sit properly on your left needle. Each stitch has a “left leg” and a “right leg”. In a knit stitch, the right leg will be in the front, like this:
Why do you need to know this? Because when you pick up stitches, very often they are twisted and you will have to place them back on the needle the correct way. It’s a no brainer, once you know how a stitch should properly sit. So, after you have picked up a stitch, make sure it is not twisted, as you will see at the end in this photo tutorial:
How to Fix a Single Dropped KNIT Stitch:
How to Fix Several Rows of Dropped KNIT stitches:
And here is a video to help you. (First half of video is knit stitches, last half is purl stitches) Purl Stitch Instruction starts at 3:20.
PICKING UP DROPPED PURL STITCHES
How to Pick Up a Single Dropped PURL Stitch:
How to Fix Several Rows of Dropped PURL stitches:
I hope this post helps you never to hear dropped stitches! Refer to video within the post if you need more help.
Happy Knitting!
Elaine
Italian Dish Knits 
Are you planning or have dropped stitches for garter rows? Those have me stumped and a project in time out
Rachel: For garter stitch, each row will either be a purl row or a knit row and then the row below it will, of course, be opposite. For a single dropped stitch, just look to see if you are on a purl row or a knit row and that will be the kind of stitch you will pick up. For multiple dropped stitches, it will alternate – if the first row is a purl row, the next row up will be knit, then purl, then knit. etc …. does this make sense?
Thank you for these clear instructions. I’m always scared when this happens.
Thank you for your advice. One can always learn something new.