Ripple stitch gone wrong

[Lkcarpenter]

Hello! I am very new to crocheting and have been trying to teach myself via YouTube and one crochet class. I am attempting to make an afghan with the ripple pattern. I am using only half double stitches ( this is the way my grandmother did it and I am trying to mimick her afghans.). I am experiencing 2 problems.

1. My peaks and valleys (is that what they are called) do not always line up correctly. I am trying to mark them with a safety pin but I am not sure if I am doing it correctly.

2. When I am adding 3 stitches to a peak it creates 3 more stitches in the row. When I loop back around I have 3 extra stitches. My count gets off. How do I fix this?

 

Any suggestions?

 

Sorry if this is unclear. Like I said, I am new to this and I dont know all the terminology.

[magiccrochetfan]

Welcome to the ville!

 

Are you using a pattern? If so, tell us the name and location of the pattern.

[Katieallen311815]

well, the way I was shown, was to skip as many sts, at the beginning, till you have the exact amount you need to reach the peak,(say you started with  6 sts up to middle stitch of the peak,where you will eventually put the nxt peak, according to your pattern that is,  and six back down is your aim.. )  row after row. Does that make any sense,,,,, you will always end up with more sts than you need at the beginning of the next row, so skip the first, or even two then count up say your 6 or whatever you have to make it to the middle stitch of the peak...make your peak, then start back down, oh and .don't forget, you need to skip 2  or crochet two together twice, in the valleys.so on the 6th stitch, do two together, and on the first sth going back up, do two together, if you are doing the gaps, that is.  geez,  I wish i were more clean on this, lol I could show you so easy!!! hope you can figure out my tips, good luck!!

[Lkcarpenter]

I am following this. Except I am doing a pattern of 12 instead of 9. I am also doing all hdc instead of sc.

[magiccrochetfan]

Can you give us a link to the site where the pattern is?  I'm afraid the screenshot or whatever is not ok per the site guidelines.  

http://www.crochetville.com/community/topic/139158-crochetville-community-policies/

[Lkcarpenter]

http://amray1976.blogspot.com/2012/02/crochet-classic-ripple-afghan.html?m=1

 

See if this link works

[Katieallen311815]

ok, that helped, are you sure you are skipping the last hdc in your row, and the first hdc in the row coming back, that shouild straighten out for you, make sure too, you are skipping two sts, in the valleys..

[magiccrochetfan]

the link does work.

 

re your questions---I would mark the center stitch of the peak, just put a safety pin in the stitch.  On the valley, there should be a little hole there because you are skipping 2 stitches, so you  should be able to see the hole.  

RE the extra stitches, when you do 3 stitches into one stitch, you are increasing by 2.  So when you do the next decrease/valley, you skip 2 stitches and that cancels out the 2 from the increase/peak.  

 

I would probably practice by following a pattern first, before trying to modify the pattern.  Ripples can be a challenge to get set up correctly and keep the count correct.  

[Lkcarpenter]

That definitely makes sense about the adding 2 skipping 2! Thanks for that!

 

I have been skipping one at the beginning of the row but not at the end. I thought it would look wrong. Haha! I am about to start a new trial piece and will start skipping the last stitch. But now I have a new question about that! Does that mean on my last set i should only stitch 8 or does it mean that after 9 there will be 1 left that I should skip?

 

You guys are great! Thank you so much for all your help!!

[magiccrochetfan]

Look at the pattern again,, it tells you exactly what to do.

[Amy]

I removed the screenshot of the pattern due to our copyright policies.

 

These days, most people realize that for-sale patterns are subject to copyright protection and copies should not be shared/posted online without permission from the copyright holder. Many don't realize that free patterns are subject to the same copyright protection.

 

Free on the internet DOES NOT EQUAL public domain.

 

Designers put free patterns on a website to help drive traffic to their site (which may result in revenue from ads on the site) and to provide an example of what their patterns are like (to help encourage sales of paid-for patterns). Making free patterns available someplace other than the designer's site, without permission, deprives the designer of much-needed site traffic and of what is probably a good source of revenue for them.

Designers need YOUR support to stay in business so they can continue to come up with wonderful new patterns for you to use. Please support them by sharing links to their patterns and not copies of the actual patterns themselves. If designers have to go get regular, full-time, non-crochet jobs to pay their bills, they won't have time to create new designs for you!

[Katieallen311815]

pattern row 2, says to skip the last chain, or to leave the  last stitch unworked, ch 1, turn.