How do I fix a dropped stitch in knitting?

A dropped stitch is a live loop that has come off the needle. Every time the fabric is pulled it can unravel one more row, so the first move is always to stop it moving rather than to fix it.

What you'll need

• A crochet hook a little smaller than your needles
• A safety pin or stitch holder
• A locking stitch marker (optional)

Step by step

1. Stop and secure it immediately.Put a safety pin or a locking marker through the loose loop. Anything else you do while it is unsecured risks it running further down.
2. Work out how far it has run.Each horizontal strand below the loop — each rung of the ladder — is one row that has come undone. Count them so you know what you are dealing with.
3. Take it to the bottom of the ladder.Insert the crochet hook into the lowest loose loop from the front, with the ladder rungs above it.
4. Hook the lowest rung through.Catch the lowest horizontal strand and pull it through the loop on the hook. That rebuilds one stitch, one row up.
5. Repeat rung by rung.Each rung becomes a stitch. Work steadily upwards until you have used the last one and the stitch is level with the current row.
6. Watch the direction on purl rows.On the purl side, you hook from the back rather than the front. If the rebuilt stitch looks wrong, you have almost certainly worked it from the wrong side.
7. Put it back on the left needle the right way round.The right leg of the loop should sit in front of the needle. A twisted stitch is a small permanent mark in the fabric.
8. Even out the tension afterwards.The rebuilt column is often looser than its neighbours. Tug gently along the row to redistribute the slack, and blocking will finish the job.
9. Decide whether to unpick instead.If several stitches dropped, or it ran through a cable or a lace pattern, it is usually faster and neater to unpick back to a sound row than to reconstruct it.
10. Prevent it recurring.Push stitches away from the needle tips when you put work down, use a point protector, and check the stitch count at the end of each row.

Tips

• Secure the loop before anything else. A dropped stitch runs while you fetch the crochet hook.
• Each rung of the ladder is exactly one row. Count them before starting.
• If it dropped through a lace or cable pattern, unpicking is usually faster than rebuilding.

Common mistakes

• Carrying on and hoping it stays put — A live loop with nothing holding it unravels a little further every time the fabric is handled, so a one-row problem becomes a twenty-row one.
• Pulling the fabric sideways to close the gap — It just distributes the slack into neighbouring stitches and leaves a visibly loose, distorted patch that blocking will not correct.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask