Knitting Too Tight

[Adrianaluv]

Hiya,

Since I started knitting I have been combination knitting (unintentionally). So, when I decided to start swatching for my first hat, I also decided to try knitting properly.
My stitches looks much much nicer :-) But, my knitting is also unworkably tight now. Even if I relax my fingers, and throw the yarn gingerly, and breath deep focused breaths with every stitch.

Any thoughts or tips?
Thanks as always,
Adriana-

[suzeeq]

Since you're knitting a hat, you may be trying to do the knit sts tbl like you do when knitting flat, but that twists the sts when you work in the round and they're tighter. So just knit into the leg closest to the tip of the needle and see if that helps.

[Ingrid]

I'd agree that you're twisting the stitches somewhere.

[salmonmac]

Take a look at the videos for knit and purl sts and see if that helps. Lots of people knit using the combination method so there's not really a single, proper way to knit but the sts should be loose enough to work easily. If combination knitting works well for you, go ahead and use it.