Why You're Getting Extra Stitches in Knitting
You cast on 80 stitches. You knit for ten rows. Now you count and find 85. Where did those five extra stitches come from? This is one of the most common problems in knitting, and it almost always has one of five specific causes. Let's go through each one so you can identify exactly what's happening in your own work.
Cause 1: Accidental Yarn Overs
An accidental yarn over is the most frequent culprit behind growing stitch counts. It happens when the working yarn ends up in front of the needle before you start a knit stitch — when you knit into the next stitch, you're also knitting over a loop of yarn that's now sitting on the needle, creating an extra stitch.
How to spot it: Accidental yarn overs look like open holes or loose, elongated stitches in your fabric. They appear wherever the yarn was incorrectly positioned.
How to fix it: When you notice one on the current row, simply drop it off the needle and continue — it will tighten up and disappear. Prevention requires checking your yarn position before every knit stitch: the yarn should be behind the needle, not in front.
Cause 2: Knitting into the Bar Between Stitches
At the start of a row, or when you pause mid-row and pick up your work again, it can look like there's a stitch waiting to be worked where there's actually just the bar of yarn between two stitches. If you insert your needle into that bar and knit it, you've just created an extra stitch.
How to spot it: The extra stitch looks slightly different from the ones around it — it may be tighter, mounted oddly, or have an unusual lean.
How to fix it: When picking up your work after a break, count your stitches before you start knitting. Make sure you identify the first actual stitch clearly before inserting your needle.
Cause 3: Splitting the Yarn
If your needle splits the strand of yarn rather than going cleanly through the stitch, you can end up with what appears to be an extra stitch — the split creates a loop that sits independently on the needle alongside the original stitch.
How to spot it: Look closely at the affected stitch — you may see a fraying or splitting of the yarn itself where the needle passed through the strand rather than the loop.
How to fix it: Use needles with a blunter tip for yarn that splits easily (wooden and bamboo tips are more forgiving than sharp metal tips). Slow down on the stitch entry and make sure you go through the loop cleanly.
Cause 4: Knitting into the Cast-On Tail
Near the beginning of a project, the tail of yarn left from your cast-on can loop up alongside your first few stitches and look like a legitimate stitch to knit into. New knitters do this more often than they realise.
How to spot it: Extra stitches that appear only on the first few rows of a project, particularly on the edge near where the tail hangs.
How to fix it: Secure your cast-on tail out of the way before you start knitting — tuck it behind the work or hold it with your non-dominant hand for the first row. After the first couple of rows, the tail position makes it obvious it isn't a stitch.
Cause 5: Lifting the Yarn from the Previous Row
When your knitting is bunched up on the needle, it's easy to accidentally lift the strand of yarn connecting two stitches from the previous row and knit into it as if it were a stitch. This is essentially an unintentional make-one and it creates a real stitch with a bar visible below it on the right side.
How to spot it: The extra stitch has a small horizontal bar at its base on the right side of the fabric — exactly like an intentional M1L or M1R increase.
How to fix it: Keep your knitting spread out on the needle so stitches and bars are clearly distinguishable. If your needle is too crowded, move some stitches to a stitch holder or waste yarn temporarily.
Diagnosing Your Specific Problem
To figure out which cause applies to you, try this: knit one row very slowly, counting as you go. Note exactly where the count goes up. The location and appearance of the extra stitch will tell you which cause you're dealing with. Most knitters find they have one consistent habit that produces the same type of error repeatedly — fix that habit and the problem disappears.
If you're still not sure what's creating extra stitches in your work, share a photo or description of your knitting for a closer look.