First afghan in 30 years - I have a problem

[CrochetingCarrie]

I'm not a fancy crochet-er yet.  And I can't even remember how to read a "recipe" - but I can chain and double with the best of them LOL

Something bad has gone wrong with the edge of my afghan, but only on one edge, which just BAFFLES me. 

Do you suppose that I dropped chains at that end at the beginning and just need to add a little to make it start moving back out?  This afghan is purely for practice sake and will just go to my youngest son who is in love with the colors.  I still don't want it to be all wonky...  Can you see what I've done wrong at all in these pictures?

[ladylacy]

First off, hello and welcome.  Could be your tension, but looks like you are dropping stitches.   When you turn, are you crocheting in your turning stitch because if it is a double crochet you don't.  Also it looks like you aren't crocheting in the last stitch sometimes.

[CrochetingCarrie]

Yeah, my tension is off - it's according to what time of day I crochet too and moods I fear.  I need to work on that.

I'll have to look at it again and see if I can figure it out. 

Is there a fix, short of pulling it all or scrapping and starting again?

[ladylacy]

If you can correct it now, a border once you are finished will help, otherwise you will have to start over because it is pretty bad in some places.  Sorry. 

[lv2crochet]

 :DOh my - I used to do the same darn thing  - I only had one side that was straight too, yeah it looks like your dropping you stitches.  I also would rip it out and start over - good luck - can't wait to see it finished!

[CrochetingCarrie]

well... sadly, ripped out yarn gets all stretched and hard to work with.  Perhaps I'll just finish this a little more and it'll be a nice scarf.  :-|

yay for me

I was thinking that my mom could go along the edges and make some kind of loopedy thing that made it look nice at least. 


Thanks for the advice.  A pretty scarf it is!

[ladylacy]

I've ripped a part many mistakes and the yarn is fine.  I have never had a problem with using yarn that I have had  to take a part due to my mistakes. 

[Aunt Em]

It's easy to not notice and leave out that last stitch on a row.  I've had to take out many a row due to the same thing.

Some stitch patterns are easier to notice than others.  I make sure I count stitches, every few rows, to make sure I'm not dropping stitches.  Otherwise, it's discouraging and tedious to have to go back and do those rows over, especially a third time.  

Hope you are making good progress now.

[Carol Ann]

Added or lost stitches on the sides happens to the best of us!  I never have had any probelm with ripping out and re-using the yarn to start over...unless when you rip back you find that the yarn was split when making some of the stitches...but even then the yarn is usually ok.  I have frogged out as many as a half a dozen times on a project and the yarn was fine.  The only way to correct the problem is to rip it out to the point the problem started and re-do it.  Fortunately crochet lends itself to doing that so much easier and faster than knitting.  Good luck.  Oh---I love the colors in the yarn!

[cis4crochet]

I remember an afghan I tried to make (told this story, but it comes handy right now, lol  ) I dropped a few stitches and the whole thing went flop! Decided to make a pillow case...trying againg now!