knitting problem

[Lavender Lily]

I made a baby cap using double pointed needles. I tryed really hard to make the areas where the needles meet, tight. But for some reason it is very evedent that thats where the needles seperated. Is there anything I can do? Its already finished. I'm thinking about making another one.

[cklewis]

I think it's just practice mostly.

Have you washed it yet? Is it in wool? Acrylic? Cotton? sometimes the yarn, in time, might forgive those tension differences -- especially if it's wool.

C

[Lavender Lily]

:scratch I have to wash it? :OI have to check on the material, Its the baby soft yarn from Walmart. I'l find out.

[cklewis]

that's probably acrylic, and it's more forgiving than cotton. :phew so that's good.

yeah, washing it might settle the stitches a little. :shrug

c

[UltraMother]

If you're knitting in the round, the VERY BEST cast on is known as Emily Ocker's. It leaves a little tail to pull so you can tighten it up as much as possible. Be careful if you're using breakable yarn- if you pull too hard, the tail will snap off and you'll still have the annoying center hole (don't ask how I learned this :shifty )

http://www.spellingtuesday.com/circular_co.html

[Naked Camper]

no adivce, since I'm working on my first double pointed needle project...just wanted to give you a :hug. I know how frustrating to work so hard on something and it not turn out quite how you'd like it. I worked very hard on a baby blanket when I first got pregnant. I was so stinkin excited when I thought it would be done. i took it off the needles and it magically shrunk :banghead I think I cried :cry :giggle

With the project I'm working on, I occasionally change around the stitches on the needles so the point that I skip over to the next needle isn't the same each time - trying to avoid a big line of holes.

Right now I'm working on the curly purly wool soakers. I'm excited! It's only an inch long right now...I just started last night.

[Tengokujin]

This is a picky way to solve the problem, but you could carefully adjust the stitches, pulling with one of your needles, at the stitches around the loose parts and work the yarn amongst the stitches more evenly tensioned. Over time, washing will probably have this effect too.

With your next DPN project, if you are very alert at the end of a needle and beginning of a needle to keep those stitches tighter, you can avoid the problem. Also, knitting each needle a couple of stitches into the next needle so that the needle change points vary each row will help too.

[Moon]

Shifting the stitches around the dpns slowly helps prevent ladder. An easy way to do that is when you've knit all the stitches onto your once loose dpn, with the once loose dpn knit the first stitch on the next dpn. Then switch to the spare dpn to knit all the stitches on the next one, grabbing the next stitch on the dpn after that, then switching to the spare again.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't confuse you further :lol

[Lavender Lily]

When I came to the seperating areas between the needles I was trying as much as I could to keep the yard tight so that there wouldn't be too much of a space between. But I don't know what happened.
Since I was just knitting it without a pattern, when I got to the area where I had to decrease to make the top. It left the top sort of weird shaped. So I need to re-calculate my stitches vs. decreasing to make it even. Ex: going from 80 stitches down to 6 to bind off. :scratch