HELP my work keeps getting wider

[aimee gratwohl]

hi i am trying to crochet a mermaid amigurumi and it keeps going wider i need it longer in length not width dose any one know what i am doing wrong and know how to help me really don't want to have to unravel and start again.many thanx Aimee x

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by aimee gratwohl

[Granny Square]

Welcome to the 'ville, Aimee!

Did your pattern tell you to increase for some number of rnds after the neck, and then stopped telling you to increase a couple of rows ago?  That is what I would have expected the pattern to say assuming you are making a human doll.

Does your stitch count in the round you are currently in, match what the pattern says you should have in that round?  Sometimes, when you go from increasing each round to not increasing (like starting a hat from the top), it takes a while for it to start getting (edit I should have said seeing) straight sides.  However, your piece does seem to be flaring, which it shouldn't.

It's a little late for this advice, but working in the round in a spiral like this you should always put a stitch marker in the first stitch of the round, and move it up each round to the new round's first stich (bobby pins make excellent and cheap stitch markers).  There is no way you are going to 'remember' where the beginning of a round is; due to the nature of crochet worked in a spiral, if near the top of the head (for example) you noted that the beginning of the round was right between the doll's eyes, it is probably at the side of the body by now (you can see on your photo the stitches don't sit right on top of each other, you can see that they drift off at an angle). *see my swatch below

Are you a beginner?  Beginners seem to resist unravelling to fix a problem.  Unfortunately, ripping and fixing is a part of the process.   There's no fixing without ripping 99.9% of the time (the other 0.01% if you catch it in the next row, you might be able to fudge a stitch).  I've been crocheting decades years and have ripped thousands of stitches because I misread something or wasn't paying attention.

If I were doing this, I'd first try to rip it back to the last decrease of the neck, which is a point you might be able to spot (this will still not be easy), finish that round if necessary, and put a marker in what should be the first stitch of the round after that.  If I couldn't figure this out, I'd start over and mark each round and move the marker as I described above.

*  Look at the bottom part of my ugly swatch below with the grey line- that part was made in the round in a spiral, each grey stitch was made into the grey stitch below, see the column drift to the right?  The top part of the swatch (with the column switched to red stitches) was to show that if you work in the back loop only, it kills the bias (but it makes a ridge, so not a good solution for your doll).  

 

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Granny Square

[bgs]

I too have ripped out many stitches in my lifetime.  Its just part of the process.  If you are crocheting in the round and joining with slip stitches its really easy to mistake the slip stitch join in the previous round as a stitch to work into and by doing that you will increase one stitch each round.  I appreciate the patterns that give you stitch counts for each round so I can figure out if I have messed up before doing many rounds.