Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Help with my Sample


Hello Everyone. Above is my small sample of the "Pink Wave" pattern in Jan Eaton's book "200 Ripple Stitch Patterns". It really is a lovely book. Since I have not crocheted for about 30 years or more, and have NEVER followed a crochet pattern, I have a few questions. As you can see from my sample, I did several multiples of my 17 chain +2 pattern. My concern is the bottom original chain row. As you can see it pulls very badly and seems much smaller than the above developing pattern. Do I just need to start my original chain row MUCH LOOSER???? I would appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Everyone's blankets are looking so wonderful and I can't wait to start, but wanted to be sure I had the technique and process down correctly. Also, I wanted the width to be about 74 inches, so plan to use my "stitches per inch" but make sure the final count is in my multiples of 17. Is that all correct??? How wonderful to have this resource available. Thanks so much.

6 comments:

Carla said...

deedledumpling, it looks to me as though you are increasing but not decreasing. Therefore, your piece is ruffling instead of waving as you move away from the foundation chain. Decreasing is usually accomplished either of two ways. Either you SKIP one or more chain stitches, or you perform a crochet 2 together.

To crochet 2 together in DOUBLE crochet: yarn over your hook and insert it into the stitch. Yarn over and bring it back out. You now have three loops on your hook. Yarn over and bring the hook through the first two loops as usual — you have two loops on the hook. At this point you do not complete this double crochet but you yarn over and start the next stitch by inserting your hook into the next stitch. Yarn over, bring it back out. You now have four loops on your hook. Yarn over and bring the hook through the first two of those loops. Now you have three loops on your hook. yarn over and bring the hook through all three loops. Your decrease is accomplished!

I don't know which decrease method your pattern calls for, but I hope this helps. If it had been 30 years since I crocheted I would definitely need a refresher, LOL! By the way, I'm not the Head Ripple Mistress, but... welcome!

deedledumpling said...

Carla, thanks for your response. I am actually skipping chain stitches when it says. That is how the pattern reads. Hmmm.

Carla said...

Well, you're smart to work out the pattern in a swatch first. I ought to do more of that myself. I don't know if this will help, but scroll way down this blog to my baby blanket, also done in a chevron. You can see the decreases where I skipped two stitches. Perhaps a close-up of the pattern I used will let you see better what should be going on. Good luck!

Kim Werker said...

Hi dd -- It does look like your rows are growing; looking at the first row worked into the foundation chain, it doesn't seem to be ruffling. Have you counted your stitches? Compare the number in the last row you worked with the number in the first row. If they're not the same, you'll have diagnosed the problem. Let us know and we'll be happy to help fix it!

Dawn said...

hey dd! to start, i'm echoing kim...is the stitch count the same in the foundation chain, first and last rows? if it's not, there's a problem with the increasing and decreasing balance. if it is, you're right and you'll need a much looser chain. wish i had the book so i could look over the pattern and help a bit more, but keep the questions coming, we'll get it figured out!

a. said...

i had a really hard time getting started so you definitely have my sympathy! i ended up doing my foundation chain in a hook one size larger than what i'm using for the rest. but like people already said, that isn't going to make much difference unless you are keeping your stitches the same from row to row.
this advice from another crochet community really helped me...
http://community.livejournal.com/crochetcrochet/237901.html