Crochet issues

[velvetpage]

Okay, this post is specifically for those of you on my list who have done crochet or knitting before.

I finished the first square of my baby afghan, and something is bothering me. I did two rounds of single crochet around the edge to finish it off, and what I've found is that it's not square. It looks like the tension is off significantly on all sides, but most seriously on the top. It's got a slightly rippled look to it around the edges, and that's bad.

I switched from my afghan hook, which I'm pretty sure is a 4.00 mm G hook, to a regular hook of the same size. Should I rip it out and go down to a 3.5 mm? Is the problem with the edging, or with the square itself, or with both? For the moment, I've left it with a loose loop, so I can tear it out without much trouble, but I want the advice of those of you who have worked with gauge issues before.

Meanwhile, I started the blue-and-yellow square. The yarn itself is driving me crazy. It took me ten minutes just to find the end of the strand, and I had to pull half the middle out to do that. Now the yellow yarn in particular is tangled up with itself. This'll teach me to buy bargain-basement one-pound balls of yarn. It'll take me half the square to use that stuff up, and keeping it out of Elizabeth's hands in the meantime will be a treat. Would it be so hard for the yarn company to set their winder so the yarn end doesn't disappear inside the ball when cut?

That is the closest I'm going to come to a rant today.

I need to go put in another load of laundry, and fold the baby laundry that's in the dryer. And I'm still putting off those piles of marking. I wonder how guilty I'll feel if I don't get to any of it? Answer: probably not very.

Comments

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Not knowing how afghan and single crochet would mesh with each other, I'm probably not going to be much help here... Have you tried this combination of techniques before?

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Yep, the plaid afghan used exactly the same look and it turned out fine.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Well, if you were using the same crochet hooks for each technique (or equivalent thereof) then I agree with sassy_fae, it's probably something to do with the tension... Though that's just a guess. :) Can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't work, if you're using the same weight of yarn for both the afghan stitch and the regular crochet.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought. I'm going to try taking it out and reducing a few stitches evenly along each side to see if that works. If it doesn't give me enough improvement, I'll switch to a smaller hook.