My Work Is Curling Badly!!!

[Lollie2639]

HI SISTERS

 

I AM MAKING 8 INCH SQUARES USING THE AFGHAN METHOD. I AM DOING THE STANDARD AFGHAN STITCH. I HAVE MADE ONLY 5-6 SQUARES. THEY ARE ALL CURLED UP INTO A 1-2 INCH ROLL...LIKE A LONG JELLY ROLL ABOUT AS WIDE AS THE TOILET PAPER HOLDER! I LOVE THE AFGHAN STITCH...BUT HATE SO MUCH THE CURLING:eek . IS THERE ANY WAY AT ALL THAT YOU KNOW OF TO KEEP THE WORK FROM CURLING. I HAVE TRIED SC THE FIRST ROW BUT THAT DONT HELP WHATSOEVER!!!

I AM GOING TO GIVE UP AND CHUNK THE ONES I HAVE ALREADY MADE. HELP IF YOU CAN PLEASE.

 

RN:think

[Sue89]

I haven't made anything with the afghan stitch, but I always get curling with single crochet so I usually steam block it with an iron and a wet cloth to flatten it down a bit. Perhaps that might work?

[pplcrochets]

Hi, CrochetRN! The afghan stitch puts most of the bulk on one side, so the curl is natural. The suggestions I've heard to flatten the curl include stitching looser (doesn't work for me) and bordering using a regular crochet stitch like sc. Alternatively, if you use a double ended hook instead, you will reverse with each row, the bulk will be evenly distributed on both sides, the curl goes away, and the stitch still looks like afghan stitch.

 

I thought I saw a link a while back on recommendations about the curl problem; have you tried googling on it yet? I'm going to go give it a try and edit this post if I find the info I think I saw.

 

Don't give up yet! the afghan stitch is so neat....

 

edited: ok, here are the first few results I got on "afghan stitch curl":

http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/cyca-forum/list.php?3,page=9 scroll down to about the middle of the list of posts; a dialogue on "afghan stitch gauge and curl" - again, the idea of a border, plus the idea that you'll have to go several rows before the curl straightens out. Never worked for me; I got the tubes, too. the border did, though.

http://www.anniesattic.com/crochet/blog.html?blog_id=2069 short, sweet list of ideas on the Annie's Attic site, pretty much the same, added the idea of steam blocking.

http://www.medidit.com/instrct/afstch.htm she recommended not one but two rounds of sc for the border; the first normal sc, the second one crab (reverse sc)

 

good luck!

[knit-errant]

In my experience tunisian does tend to curl quite a bit. I use a larger hook or loose tension for the foundation chain, and that helps somewhat. Like Sue said, I've found that steam blocking helps too.

 

Hmm.. I'm working on an afghan combining crocheted and stockinette squares, and stockinette stitch tends to curl a lot too. To take the curl out of the stockinette (and to make the squares look nicer when I join them) I've put a row of sc around all four edges of the squares. Maybe that would work on your afghan stitch stuff too?

[karin4christ]

I've done the afghan stitch before and you are right it does tend to curl quite a bit. I agree with the person who said if you crochet around it with a regular hook that the curl should lessen considerably. The other thing that I have done when making a blanket with the afghan stitch is to do a border of purl stitches around the blanket (or square). For instance, I would do 4 rows of purl on the top and bottom of the afghan and the sides would have maybe 4 purl stitches on each side. That really took all the curl out for me. Since you are doing squares I don't know how feasible that would be to do unless you decided to make your squares larger. I hope that helps you some.

[queen_mo]

I've tried it too and it always curls on me. There's been plenty of suggestions, but I might add that if you are doing a motif based afghan, why don't you flip and rotate the squares so that they aren't all facing the same way, or in the same direction? It might eliminate the curl in the finished blanket.

Let us know how you make out.

Monica

[mrs who]

Afghan stitch curls, that's what it does. Wet block or steam block to cure it - don't worry!!