Curly edges.

[IrisHill]

I have a tendency to not always be even in my stitches but this is the worst. Can't block it out, yarn is 75% acrylic, 25% wool. It's for my little granddaughter so in the long run it will be fine, she will love it anyway and it will be washed a lot. However, it's disappointing. Guessing there's nothing I can do to fix it. I did try to block it last night after a gentle wash and then ironed this morning but it still has ruffly edges. Thank you for your help.   

[Granny Square]

Hi IrisHill, welcome to the 'ville!

I have this problem with center-out doilies, because my stitch height is sort of on the short end, and doesn't always match with the designer's.  This is in thread so you can usually block it out unless it is severe.  If it is too severe to block out, the easiest way to fix the problem is to remove stitches.

But, this is mostly acrylic.  Some people would tell you to pin it out and 'kill' the acrylic with heat, but I personally do not like the physical change that makes, the yarn becomes crunchy and limp.

I think it is OK until the border.  What I would do is rip out the border, and re-do it with fewer stitches, but before that: go around and try to figure out how many stitches are 'extra' in each 'ruffle' on each side, and make a note of which side is which number of stitches (maybe pin a note on each side) - don't go overboard, if you take out too many, it's  going to curl up ("cup") instead of ruffle.  Then rip and re-do the border and discreetly evenly space decreases to eliminate the number of extra stitches on each side.  Yes, this is a lot of work, but it will give a result you will be happy with.

With regard to evenly spacing increases or decreases, most of the time you can't be exactly precise with that because the numbers don't divide evenly.  You usually end up with something like '*increase (or decrease) every 5th stitch 3 times except twice every 7th stitch spaced as evenly as you can, repeat until there are 6 stitches left'.  If this is  confusing, count your extra stitches that you need to take out on each side, and how many you had originally, come back and let us know and one of us can help figure out a reasonably even way to place the decreases.

[IrisHill]

Thank you!