Ruffling/cupping fix without frogging?

[Shadwkat]

Help! I’ve been working on my first shawl, and I also decided I wanted to create my own pattern for it (because that makes complete sense!) So last night I had maybe 3 rows left until I ran out of yarn, and I didn’t like how the stitches looked all together, so I ended up frogging around 10 rows. As of tonight I’m on the same row I was on before the frogging and I just realized I have some ruffling/cupping so it wont lay completely flat. I located the row the problem happened on, and I’d have to frog 6 rows to get to it to correct it. Is there ANY way to get everything flatter without completely redoing my work, again? Will blocking the finished project be enough? I’ll try anything that would help so I don’t have to redo it all again! 

 

[Granny Square]

The answer is: probably you'll need to frog the 6 rows.  This is something I run into a lot, as ruffling /cupping happen when working in the round and I make a lot of doilies; in fact I'm working on a potholder set right now (in the round) that I'm having to tweak, fortunately I caught a slight cupping within a couple of rounds and made adjustments.

Also, designing something from scratch - you are going to need to expect to do a LOT of ripping, and a lot of stopping and examining whether your fabric is starting to misbehave so you may only have to rip back a row or 2 to fix it right then, if it's starting to go slightly astray it's not likely to heal itself 6 rows later.  

Everybody has their own stitch tension, height and with, including designers, and height tension is important in the round (the whole pi times diameter thing).  I have found that ruffling will usually block out, I have only been defeated by one item that was too extreme and had to rip almost completely back.

Cupping, on the other hand, is tougher.  Ruffling you can 'yank the tarnation' out of it to get flat, most of the time.  Cupping, you'd have to do the opposite - shove stitches toward the middle, which is usually sort of impossible, although I've managed to block out mild cupping on something very lacy but not solid fabric.

Ruffling: circumference is too big for the diameter.  Fix:  taller stitches, or throw in a row without increases, or remove some increases to decrease circumference ratio.

Cupping: circumference is too small for the diameter.  Fix: shorter stitches, add stitches to increase circumference ratio.

 

[USpolishgirl]

Granny Square HOW LONG you been crocheting??

I am asking that because you have so much knowledge  about everything on that subject.  I enjoy very much reading your advice's here :).  I do know that even if I would be crocheting 20 more years I will never get that much knowledge as you do!.

I really like the way you  are explaining everything to everyone who is asking for help :).

Krys

[USpolishgirl]

When I was crocheting all those round pet blankets for donations to Pet Shelters... I did came to a "problem" after 9 row, it was starting ruffling. So I cut down on the amount of increases, instead of 8 stitches per row I did 6 stitches - increase for next 6 rows. After that I went back to 8 stitches increase and that worked out very well. Those were small blankets - 24" in diameter. I am sure IF I would want them bigger I would need to change the number of increase stitches again. I used bulky yarn #6 and sc stitch. I did not want to have any openings in those blankets for all those small paws :).

Krys

[Granny Square]

Thank you  I've been crocheting a LONG time!  And learned from a LOT of mistakes along the way.

I learned to crochet as a teen ager, way pre-internet, had 1 evening of lessons (school chum's mom) and then was on my own.  And was given a pile of vintage doily pattern books and had to solve problems by trial and error as vintage patterns are more 'terse' than modern patterns.  And, I'm still discovering so many new things.

I try to answer questions in a way that would have made me go   when I first encountered the same problem.  Or not just say "do this", I try to explain the steps of my thought process of how to figure out the answer (especially if an instruction is really vague) to hopefully help the poster to be able to solve the next dilemma on their own.  It's mostly "what are the things it could mean; what would happen if I did each one of the things I can think of, would the stitch count be right, would it look like the pattern photo, etc".

 

[Shadwkat]

Thank you!! Sunday I bit the bullet and I frogged 13 rows, which is where things started to go wrong, and I did a row of single crochet plus a row of slip stitches using the a second color (both without increases) that I already had planned on adding and it looks 1000% better.

It’s not completely flat because I do have issues holding my yarn tightly but the ruffling is barely visible and it’s only in a couple spots. I had thought I was adding enough increases but I’m mixing a number of stitches and I didn’t think of adjusting the increases to fit the row/stitch I was on 🙄 So only a few rows were “wrong” but of course it’s a ripple effect lol. Thank you for the help!

Edited October 1, 2019 by Shadwkat

[Granny Square]

You're welcome!  I know it's all in my head, but when I have to rip back and re-do, the re-do seems to go faster, which makes me feel a little better...