So I just started using Inkscape last week and I've been playing around and just a few hours ago I start running into some problems when trying to manipulate Bezier paths using the handlebars.


Here's an imgur gallery basically showing the trouble I started having:

http://imgur.com/a/nxbCB

Maybe I'm just going crazy but I've been playing the the Bezier tool a lot and I'm almost positive I've been doing what's shown in the gallery without the odd snapping effect. I do realize what when nodes cross, wonky things can happen but that isn't what's happening in this situation. I'm assuming that a) I actually am going crazy or b) I hit some shortcut by accident and don't know how to disengage the effect. I appreciate any assistance I can get with this.

Welcome aboard!

It seems you made a spiro-path, which, supposedly behaves differently than regular paths.
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Paths-LivePathEffects-SpiroSpline.html

Either switch to normal path before you draw in the tool's control bar or
remove that live path effect after or
put the path inside a group (Ctrl+G) and transform the group itself for a more "conventional" behave.

Wow, thank you. I can't believe I missed that I had did that.