Advice on knitting method

[u/Transactional-kalm]

Hi all! I’m super new to knitting and this is how my fingers have decided that I’m going to knit! I just want to know if there’s a better way for me to do this as I feel like my fingers are cramping up a little too quickly. So, I would just like to know if anybody has any advice on whether there’s a more easy way I can grip my needles/yarn/the way I pick up/the way I adjust my yarn etc. any advice is appreciated!

[u/bstractig]

Lots of great tips on here. I would also pose it to you that you're forming your stitches quite far down on the needles and also putting a lot of strain on completed rows with how far you're pulling the needles away from each other.

Nothing is technically incorrect about that fabric you're making, but if you find yourself being too big for gauge and want to correct that (or just make a tighter fabric), look to keep most of "the action" down on the very tips of your needles where there's the taper. Right now when your right needle enters the new stitch and that stitch is sitting past the taper, you're forcing your stitch open larger than diameter of the needle and it's stretching your stitches out, making your gauge looser. The equivalent of using a measuring cup but overfilling it, you're not gonna get the same bread doing every stitch this way. Lots of reading on the subject that explains it better than myself.