Questions from a new knitter

[abbygail]

Hello Everyone, :D

I know this was probably discussed many times but I am new to knitting so please bear with me.
First question...sometimes my stitches are crisscrossed with the one next to it...can you tell me what I am doing to cause this?

Second question....I start out with a certain number of cast on stitches and before I know it there are more on the needle then I started with....can you tell me how this happens and is there any way to correct it?

Thanks for your help..........
Evelyn

[kemp]

The criss cross I'm not sure about...a picture would help.

As far as adding stitchs it is usually an inadvertent yarn over...especially if you are switching back and forth between knit and purl stitches. You might try putting stitch markers every 5 stitches or so...that way you'll know pretty quickly when you add one and mabye you can see what you did.