Sunday, July 22, 2007

Frogging Again!

Frogging is part of the learning process for a fiber craft, be it sewing, crocheting, quilting or knitting. What is frogging? That is when you rip-it, rip-it, rip-it, because you are unhappy with your stitches.

Becoming good at your craft doesn't eliminate frogging. I still forget where I am in a knit or crochet pattern and go off course or sew crooked seams or my gauge is off or . . . Since I started knitting socks for myself at the beginning of the year, I've frogged the first sock of each pair at least 2 or 3 times before I finally got it to fit right.

Below is the latest project that will be making the trip to the frog pond. The blue is one of the afghans I machine knitted while I was on vacation. Last week, I sat down and tried 2 or 3 crochet hooks to get stitches to match the gauge across the cast-on edge of the afghan. The crocheted edging on that end is nice and flat. The edging on the 2 sides look like the picture below. Ruffled! It's not supposed to be ruffled!

ruffled edging on machine knit blanket

This afghan is destined for Project Linus. The edging is 3 rounds of half double crochet hooked in baby yarn with size 00 steel crochet hook. Over 700 stitches per round. I've let this sit for 2 days, debating whether to frog and redo. My gut says redo, so it's destined for the frog pond.

Moral: When you're adding an edging, a few inches spread out on your lap or the sofa may not be enough to tell how flat it is. Especially when the knitting persists in curling even with the edging added.

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