I somehow have extra stitches on my knitting needle.

It is a frustrating moment, but very common! To figure out what happened, take a deep breath and lay your work down on a flat surface.

Here are the most likely culprits to look for:

1. The Accidental Yarn-Over (YO) This is the most common cause. You might have accidentally brought your yarn to the front of the needle (between the needle tips) before starting a stitch, or draped it over the needle while moving between knit and purl.

• Look for: A "hole" or a strand of yarn that looks like a loose loop running between two stitches.

2. Knitting into the same stitch twice If you accidentally knit into the stitch you just worked, or picked up the "leg" of the stitch below, you’ve increased your count.

• Look for: Two stitches emerging from the exact same base stitch on the row below.

3. Knitting the "tail" or a loose loop Sometimes, a loop from a stitch below can be pulled up and mistakenly treated as a live stitch.

• Look for: A stitch that looks slightly different or looser than its neighbors, often connected to the fabric below rather than the previous row’s stitch.

4. Dropped stitches being re-picked up incorrectly If you dropped a stitch and picked it up later, you might have pulled up a strand from the row below, creating an extra loop.

How to troubleshoot:

• Count by 10s: Place a stitch marker every 10 stitches. If you find a section where you have 11 or 12, you know exactly which area of the row holds the mistake.
• Compare to the row below: Look at the "V" shapes of your stitches. If you have an extra stitch, you will likely see a place where the logic of the fabric doesn't match the row beneath it.
• Don't panic-tink: If you can't find it immediately, just knit one more row. Often, the mistake becomes glaringly obvious once the next row is added because the extra loop will look very out of place.

The Fix: If you find the extra stitch, you can simply "drop" it off the needle and let it ladder down to the point of the error, then hook it back up correctly, or perform a "K2tog" (knit two together) on your next row to bring your stitch count back down to where it should be.

If you are fairly sure the mistake happened a few rows back, you may need to gently unravel (tink) back to the row where the count was correct.