H-E-L-P! I've Gone Too Far...

[Butterflyrose]

HELP! I've gone to far, worked too hard to turn back now! I have a few uneven rows on this baby blanket and I can not, will not frog it. To work it out, I intend to embellish this blanket with an exquisite, lavish edging to hopefully hide the few errors. I'll also add appliques along the edges as needed. Any ideas for an elaborate edging???

This is my very first large project!

[Landon]

Oh, no, I know that feeling!! Someone will be along and they will help you out, I just know it!! Bless your heart! What colour is it? Be on the lookout for a message from me, OK?

[GrammaJoe]

Don't panic. Take a deep breath.....Changes are you will be able to cover the boo boos up with a border.

[Anaisa]

The only thing I can think of is a loose open lacy edge...hope this is helpful.

[Maryjane]

I would also suggest some sory of lacy edge! That way the edges might look like they are supposed to be that way!! Or you could maybe make a wavy edge? I'm sure others will have suggestions too! So don't despair!!

[Judi Gums]

When doing the edging you can adjust the stitches you use to fill in the dips......do a HDC rather then a SC if you need to fill in to even out the side. Work with it and see how it works for you.

Judi G

HELP! I've gone to far, worked too hard to turn back now! I have a few uneven rows on this baby blanket and I can not, will not frog it. To work it out, I intend to embellish this blanket with an exquisite, lavish edging to hopefully hide the few errors. I'll also add appliques along the edges as needed. Any ideas for an elaborate edging???

This is my very first large project!

[barbless]

Hi ButterflyRose, welcome to the "I screwed up and can't face ripping it all out" club. Everyone who does needlework must face this situation. From my own experiences I have a cardinal rule of stopping every few rows and carefully checking my work. It has saved my sanity more than once because it is torture to have to rip out days and days of work, even if your yarn will allow itself to be un-crocheted without becoming hopelessly knotted or breaking. A practical question to ask oneself is "which will take longer, ripping it out and redoing it or creating all sorts of ways to cover it up?"

Is your blanket all one color? Are you just missing a stitch at the edge on a few rows? If it is, Judi's solution will work well. If the missed stitches are on the edge and it is more than one or two, you can try to fill in the gaps by reattaching the yarn at the mistake.

You could hand sew satin blanket binding rather than crocheting an edge. That would cover up the uneven edges.

You could try crocheting the edge by putting your hook down one row for one stitch, down two rows for the next, down three for the next, creating an edge that draws the eye to those stitches rather than the actual edge.

Please don't waste a lot of energy feeling like you made a mistake. We all do it. In fact, it was a tradition for a very long time for good christian women to intentionally make a mistake somewhere on their needlework, especially on a quilt, because only God is perfect.

There are literally thousands of edge patterns out there. Search for "crochet edge patterns" and start browsing. It would help if you could post a picture of your work or tell us some more details, like is the edge yarn a different color than the blanket yarn? Did you want a plain edge or a fancy edge?

Here's a rather interesting edge that is very eye-catching:
Yarn Crazy Girl Patterns: Puffy lace edging

One more thing - nobody who receives a wonderful gift like a hand made blanket is going to care about such a small detail as an uneven edge. I seriously doubt most people would even know that what they are looking at isn't what you meant it to look like. The ART of needle work is in the interpretation of a pattern. If you wanted it to look exactly like the picture, it would not be a work of art but a machine-like replica.

So please relax, enjoy the process. And, please, PLEASE, don't let this discourage you from your next big project!

[Anaisa]

barbless...I love what you said...nobody who receives a wonderful gift like a hand made blanket is going to care about such a small detail as an uneven edge It's true!

[Joyannerose]

I so agree with Barbless. It's part of the learning process. If you have a gap in the middle let me know, I know a fix for that. My first baby blanket was for twins! (I didn't know when I said I'd make a baby blanket). ha ha. Well, the first one was pink and white, I was so excited to be doing a girls blanket. It took forever, and of course was not quite square as my tension changed as I got better with the stitch. The blue and white one for the boy was much more even. I gave them to her anyway (even though if she compared the two she'd have to see the difference). And she loved them. A couple years later, she told me one of them still took it everywhere they went, and just loved it. See it doesn't matter to the baby one lick!

[grandmajenny]

Butterflyrose, I feel for you and have been there many a time. I have froged whole sweaters and remade them because I didn't like the way it turned out. For me sometimes I just can't bare to leave a mistake in especially if I am going to see it. Other times I will leave a mistake in, for example for my daughter I left a mistake on an edge of a lapgan and told her it was there to remind her I wasn't perfect and made mistakes too. If you really want to work over this I would try sc around the edge and then doing linked double crochets around putting 3 stitches in the corners or 2 linked dc and a picot in the corner. Then I would pick a lacy edging you feel comfortable with and proceed to put it on the foundation edge you have just made. Or as it has been suggested before you may find it takes you more time to cover up your mistake then it will take to redo it. What ever you do know that you will have learned from this and will become better at your craft because of it. Also you could take a picture, if I and the others could see it we might have better suggestions.