Most knitting projects take more than one sitting to complete. And if we don't store our project in progress properly, it can succumb to many problems that will make it more difficult for us to pick it back up again later. In this article, I will share my tricks to keep my projects sane and easy to pick back up again. This is also effective for when you are like me, and have to have several projects going at the same time. (In a future article, I'm also going to talk about how to optimize your knitting project for travel.) These tips go in order, starting with the quickest/simplest and advancing from there depending on your level of compulsion. Feel free to comment if there is something you do that I left out!

 1. Protect it from Pets 
Many of us fiber fans are also fans of furry friends or have big furry families. Sometimes our furry friends also find interest in our fiber, and unfortunately that can lead to disastrous results if we are not careful. (Ex: old story of a pet disaster from Ravelry; warning: a little gross). One thing I remind all of my knitting students is to properly store our knitting to protect it from furry friend curiosities. This can really be as simple as putting it away in a safe location, where our pets can't access it. Whether you have cats, dogs, ferrets or other pets who freely roam your household, it might be a good idea to not just leave the project sitting on the couch. 

​2. Keep the stitches on the needles
A common issue that I see beginners have, is they have yet to grok the importance of keeping the stitches on the needles. This can lead to mistakes in the process of knitting (i.e. dropped sts, etc), but it can also happen when the project isn't being actively worked on. I don't know if it is the gnomes or what, but if you don't secure your sts on your needles when storing a project, they are at risk of falling off the needles. This is not a fun way to pick a project back up again - having to do restoration. Fortunately, there are some beautiful tools that help out in this purpose (and you know I love my tools!). Point protectors - simply secure these rubber devices on the points of your needles, and go forward with confidence that your yarn won't slip off. I have seen knitters (and ok, personally done this myself as well) where instead I just shove the points of the needles into my ball of yarn when storing. As long as you push the stitches towards the blunt end of straight needles, or move the stitches towards the center of your circular needle, and pull the points out further, this can be an ok method. But it would only be a backup to utilizing point protectors. And now they come in all sorts of fun and cute styles - so why wouldn't we use them?

3. Bag and Tag
Bags, bags, bags
If you know me, you know that I am a self-proclaimed bag lady. I love bags! And there are so many cute ones. Or maybe you also sew, so you can make some of your own (my mother-in-law sews and has made me several!). I love the small, project sized bags that zip closed, because I can store my whole project (and a backup ball of yarn) in there. It also makes it super portable. But this way my projects stay separate. Bigger bags are ok too, especially for larger projects like blankets or sweaters once they grow, though often they don't secure or zip closed at the top. Generally I prefer to use these bags to hold all my smaller project bags, and perhaps a stack of patterns (which I keep in those clear slippery page protectors!) or pattern books I'm using.
What kind of kills me is when someone uses a plastic ziplock bag for their knitting. Now I know, they have a few benefits. For one, they are clear, so you can see what is inside. For two, they do technically seal shut, though not always in the easiest way (i.e. I prefer a sturdy zipper). Something about the plastic is just a turnoff to me. Plus, knitting needles are pointy, and can potentially penetrate the bag - which could mean they could run away or poke holes in your bag, and if you are storing other parts (markers, counters, etc) then you might lose those things as well - disaster! So while I won't shame you for using a plastic ziplock to store your knitting (it is better than nothing!) I would encourage you to indulge a little in a cloth (or recycled plastic with a fun pattern?) bag to store your work. 

Tagging or Labels
Once you have bagged your knitting, you might also want to give it a little tag, or label, so that you know what lives in that bag. Now I will admit, this is a step I don't actually do. But if you are the type of knitter who sets aside your work for long periods of time before you come back to it (or perhaps you have a project you need to hibernate for awhile), this might be useful. You could even be super fancy and attach a luggage tag to your little bag, and put in a little tag that says what the project is. You could also list more details, like which pattern you are following, when you started it etc, but I think that information is better input into your Ravelry project page for tracking. Your label could just be the name of the project in Ravelry, and then you can refer to the details there. (More about Ravelry in another future post!)

4. Yarn, Balls, and Unraveling
I could probably go on at length here for more techniques regarding yarn storage, but I'll save it for a future article. Meanwhile, it is good to know that your ball of yarn might make a little mess of itself while it lingers in storage. If you have made some progress on your knitting during its session, your once tightly rolled ball might have become a bit floppy. This is why I advise that before you put it away, you may consider re-rolling it into a center pull ball first. Those loose, floppy piles of yarn when left to their own devices, have a tendency to form into knots, which I promise you won't want to untangle when you pick this project up to knit again. From my experience, I am still the only person alive who actually enjoys untangling and unknotting these messes (I do it a lot for my students), and that is perfectly ok that no one else takes pleasure in this task. Honestly, I could charge extra for this kind of help, but I just enjoy it. Assuming you do not - consider that how you store your yarn will dictate its shape later on. So I'll repeat one last time - your yarn will loosen up in storage. It also will help reduce the space you need to store your project if your balls are neatly rolled. 

a. Highlighter tape, notes on my pattern
Put a piece of highlighter tape at your place in the pattern. You can then also write directly on the tape, draw a line to indicate exactly where you are. This is great for charts, but you can also circle the instruction you were on precisely. 
I have become a huge fan of highlighter tape. Better and more sticky than sticky notes, which can fall off your pattern. Now highlighter tape can also lose its stick and fall off, so I like to put it directly on my printed out pattern inside the protective sleeve, which almost completely reduces the chances of that happening. Here, it really depends how long I anticipate the project will sit. If it is more than a couple of weeks, I might also make a note directly on my pattern (maybe in pencil) that this was where I left off. 
However you decide to indicate which instruction you were on, you want to choose a way that is consistent for you, and that future you will understand. I absolutely recommend writing yourself a literal note, in addition to the placement of the highlighter tape, that says "I just completed row 15, with one stitch left in my round so the round marker would stay on," or something helpful like that. Leaving too much up to future you interpretation can get us into trouble!
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b. Counters, and backup for counters
I love counters! They come in all sorts of varieties and you can even get some row counter apps on your phone or favorite device. I see a lot of folks use tick marks either on their pattern or a sticky-note, but I don't recommend this (hard to know later what they meant). Personally, I love using the physical counters myself. The problem with the counter apps on your phone, (I use "Crochet and Knit Counter" from the app store), is even though you can label the project the count is for, is that when I go to pick a project back up, if the counter isn't attached directly to my project, I might forget that I was storing the count in an app. Instead, I love the little counters that attach directly to your needle. They have some that are for straight needles and my all time fav is the one that doubles as a round marker, since I do a lot of circular projects. I also LOVE the "clicky" counters- where it makes a very distinct "click" sound that is just so gratifying whenever I tick it. There is one drawback to this type though, which is when storing in your project bag, it might accidentally advance itself!  (This has happened to me a lot with this counter, which I still use because I love the "click" so much!) So the advice here, the save, is that when you put a project into storage (no matter how short term or long term), make another note on your pattern of what your counter says. I promise it will save you tons of time and heartache. And if the physical sticky note (attached to your pattern and slid inside the page protector) isn't available, another place you can make notes is directly on your Ravelry project. The only trick there is remembering that you stored that information there. 

Pattern Storage Recap
Regardless of which approaches you choose to keep track of where you are in your pattern (physical paper, digital, etc), the key is that you develop a system that works for you, and that you will remember. There is no shame in writing yourself little notes and leaving it with your knitting project. Maybe pin the note to the inside of your knitting bag: "I wrote the counter value in my Ravelry project" or "The count I left off on was 25." I love reminders, and we all need them. Our brains can only hold so much at one time! 

Storing Project Recap
I hope that you find these storage techniques make a difference and increase the quality of your knitting time! If you do find yourself in a pickle, please feel free to reach out to me via my Knitting Help Form, or by joining Knit Chats and reaching out to me directly on slack! Please also subscribe to my newsletter, and follow me on the socials!

One of the most common mistakes that I find in patterns is when the instructions don't "math" up to the right number of stitches. When things don't work out properly, it can be our first instinct to think we've done something wrong. But that isn't always the case. Thus, I have become rather adept at counting how many stitches I'm supposed to have in a pattern in order to look for mistakes. In this blog, I'll attempt to share some of my tricks with you, in case you want to do the same!

The basics are pretty straightforward: K3 counts three stitches. It's the shaping stitches: increases and decreases, and then more complex magic like cables and lace that can get wonky. I would nominate lace as the most complex counting task, even beyond general shaping, just because the number of stitches is constantly changing within a row, and it can make it difficult to use markers to help you. (See this article where I talk about how to use markers to help you have to count less!)

There are generally two counts of a row you can have - the count before you work it and the count after. If you are lucky enough to follow a generously written pattern, they will often tell you the stitch count you are supposed to have once you've completed some shaping instruction that changes the total stitch count. 

Here are some guidelines of how to count particular stitches before AND after you knit them. The "Before count" means how many stitches you should have in your row before you've worked that instruction. The "After count" is how many sts you would count after working that stitch. For example, if my row instruction read: K3, K2tog, K6, ssk, K1. The "before count" would be: 3+2+6+2+1=14 sts. The "after count" would be 3+1+6+1+1=12 sts. 

Lace patterns, as I mentioned are especially tricky because the number of sts is often changing every lace row. Usually there is a combination of increases (yo) and decreases (k2tog, ssk) within a single row. Sometimes this means that the overall number of sts does NOT change before and after the row, but within each repeat of the pattern (since the lace pattern is also, often, repeating). For example, your lace row might be: K3, *K2, K2tog, yo, K4*, to last 3 sts, K3. So while the k2tog would decrease the st count by 1, and the yo would increase it by 1, that would be a net 0 change. 
The way that this is meaningful or helpful though, is when you are working your lace pattern, and something gets off. You may have missed a yo (the usual thing I miss) and it has offset the whole pattern. (See this blog entry for the story of when I had a lot of this type of pain). While it may require tinking to resolve, hopefully this method of counting can help you to find out more quickly when you have a counting error. 

Counting stitches is another thing I do when following a chart. (Also, when I'm designing patterns with charts). Unfortunately it is not always the easiest thing to read. It is difficult to represent the changing counts of patterns in a chart, which can make the chart more difficult to read as well. This is where knowing how many stitches before and after an increase or decrease stitch can help. In the chart pictured here, the yo increases one stitch and the pass yo over K2 decreases by 1. The rest of the stitches don't change the overall stitch count. 

Beyond working with needles and yarn, a challenge of being a knitter is learning to interpret and follow knitting patterns. Written in a condensed "knit-speak" of abbreviations and other knit-isms that are usually only learned from experience, patterns may contain the keys to creating beautiful works of art, but only if you can learn the sometimes secret language they contain.
Hand knitting creations of love also takes time, usually multiple sessions, so learning to follow patterns and keep track of where you are (or where you left off) is an additional task to track. This can be especially difficult for beginners, who are already trying to learn the muscle memory of just handling the yarn and needles. 
In my beginning knitting days, I used to write out condensed instructions in patterns in expanded form. While it was good practice to determine what the pattern was trying to say, it also introduced a lot of room for error in those translations. In some cases, however, I still find it helpful to write out some instructions. 
When helping knitters on their projects, I see many methods of tracking patterns. Usually lots of little check marks or scribbles on the page. 
In this post, I want to share a few ways that I keep track of where I am in patterns, with the hope you try some and it eases your knitting experience. You will notice an emphasis on "using the tools," which is something I love about knitting - that there are tools - and how it helps take our mind off everything except the knitting itself. 

1. Printed Pattern - Tools: Sheet Protectors. I am actually quite a technical person, being in software development, and while there are several very fun apps out there that help you track your pattern, nothing feels quite like paper in your hand. I also like to have the pattern printed in case my device with the app dies, or I forget that that is where the pattern is. It's also easier to write notes directly on patterns, and I don't always trust the applications to save everything. Long ago I bought a huge pack of those see-through slip sleeves, so I put each pattern into that to keep the pages together (works better than a staple) and also protects the paper from getting quite as crumpled. 

​2. Multiple sizes - highlight your size. If the pattern you are working from has multiple sizes, before you start working it, I recommend highlighting the instructions that correspond to the size you'll be working throughout the pattern. Then you won't have to remember or think about having to follow the instruction listed second in the parentheses, etc every time you encounter it. This is another benefit to having the pattern printed out. I will also use highlighter tape to do this, if I don't have an actual highlighter handy. 

3. Tools: Row counters. I love me some clickers! The row counters that make a very satisfying "click" noise whenever you track a row. But I also love the row counter wheels that hang directly off your needles. I've found them in both the kind that fit onto a needle, and the kind that *double* as a round marker! My advice for how to set your row/round counter, is to have it say the number of the row or round you are ON. If you are about to start a row, it should say the number of that row. i.e. if you have just cast on your work and joined in the round, your row counter will read "01." That way, if I stop knitting in the middle of my row, I will always know which row I am on! I highly recommend using row counters over just check marks on a sticky note (a technique I see a lot of beginners use) because the number is easier to read off a counter vs having to count up checks! Also, it tells you more about where you are in the pattern. See also: Highlighter tape. 

4. Tools: Stitch markers. I love using stitch markers! It helps keep the counting down. I like to put them between repeats of patterns within rows. I'll use the ones that look like little safety pins to mark which side of my work is the "right side." Stitch markers come in all sorts of fun styles and colors, and some are better than others depending on your project. While the fun ones with lots of dangling bits are cute, they often get stuck in my yarn so I usually use the solid round ones the most. The way these help me keep track of where I am in my pattern is especially in repeats of patterns. If I have a marker at the beginning of each repeat, I can look back and read my knitting just from that repeat, rather than having to go all the way to the beginning of the row. 

5. Tools: Highlighter tape. Another great use of highlighter tape is when following charts. In a chart I may use it to underline the row that I am working. One caution about the tape: if you put it directly on the slippery sleeve, it might lose its stick and fall off. So better to put it directly on the pattern and put that into the sleeve before storing! I've learned this the hard way a few times. 
I also use a piece of tape directly on my pattern at the place of my instruction. Sometimes you'll be following an instruction block for awhile, i.e. "Knit until piece measures x inches from cast on edge." Putting the tape there helps me to know which part of the pattern I'm in when I come back to a pattern after setting it down for awhile.  

6. Ravelry notes! Of course I love tracking my projects in Ravelry! There are many reasons to do this (see some of my other posts about patterns), but Ravelry also has a great section for notes on each of your projects. There is even a "private notes" section, in case you don't want your ramblings public to the world. This is a nice way to have everything about your pattern tracked in one place. Because of course I love putting in the details about which yarn, needles, etc I used. 

List of handy tools mentioned here:

• Sheet protectors. (Those see-through sleeves for paper) - the kind that can later go in a 3-ring binder!
• Highlighter tape! Comes in lots of fun colors
• Row counters. So many varieties. So many fun ways to count. 
• Stitch markers. Lots of styles, many uses.