Unraveling Made Easy: Who Unraveled It?

Dear users, dear authors,
who unraveled it?
Was it a UFO? Would you like to share your story?

I had to rip out my work just this past weekend—I’m knitting a soul warmer, and when I took a closer look, I realized there was an offset where there shouldn’t be one. So everything I’d knitted had to be ripped out. The pattern repeat was ruined, so I started over :-)

Best wishes, Inge

Oh, that happens sometimes—of course, it’s best if it’s just a short section.
But it’s better to rip it out than to get frustrated later when the finished piece has a mistake in it.

I really do this every day to get a positive result…
it’s just part of the process for me… I find it annoying… but it’s not a big deal 

Right now, it feels like I’m unraveling forever. I want to crochet a doll’s jacket, and since I’m trying something new, I find myself unraveling a lot.

When crocheting, I don’t mind it that much, but when knitting lace patterns, it often takes a long time to get all the stitches back on the needle. It sometimes helps to use a working thread right from the start. 

...I didn’t rip it out, BUT I knitted back two rows. I’m currently knitting a slip-stitch pattern, so it’s almost impossible to rip it out. Even with lace patterns, I tend to knit back rather than rip it out—though I do rip it out sometimes. Although with my current project, a triangular shawl, I did rip out the beginning completely. 😤 Mistake in the pattern—unfortunately, these errors run through all the knitting charts. I’m very “picky” about that, so I just rip it out or knit back. 

Right now I’m knitting… and so far I haven’t had to unravel anything—it’s almost eerie. With my crochet projects, I’ve always had to unravel something, but that’s not so bad; with knitting, I hate having to pick up all those stitches again.

I’ve recently unravelled the beginning of an otter’s head from a book (“Edwards’ New Animal Parade”) several times.
Somehow the color change always looks so asymmetrical, but I guess I’d have to crochet it all the way to the end once. Then at least I’ll know how the pattern is supposed to develop.

How do you knit backwards? Do you have to undo each stitch individually?

Exactly, dear Josefa 
Some patterns are very hard, if not impossible, to coax back onto the needle once they’ve come off 🙈
With complex lace patterns, for example, and also slipped-stitch/mosaic patterns, unraveling is difficult. I’d rather knit “backwards,” even when I currently have over 300 stitches on the needle.... 
A lifeline would help, but it bothers me while knitting; I always have only very thin yarn on the needle.... 

Oh wow
thanks for the info

When I design amigurumi, unraveling is actually part of the normal process, because often you don’t realize until then where you need to increase or decrease stitches. But as mentioned above: when crocheting, that’s not such a big deal. Unless you’re working with chenille yarn. That tends to unravel when you rip it out. That’s why I crochet the little animals with cotton yarn first, even if they’re going to be made out of chenille later on.

Can you unravel fringed yarn, or is it a lost cause?

Fringed yarn, like mohair yarn, is very difficult to unravel. It usually gets completely knotted up—the only solution is to cheat or start over from scratch, which means buying more yarn.
@Ruth, I didn’t know that chenille yarn unravels when you rip it out....
I’ll have to think very carefully about whether I want to crochet this huge “cushion animal” for my nephew. It takes a lot of yarn and has a lot of large pieces.... 

So eyelash yarn is a problem when unraveling and when working with it, too. Oh well.