Mason Dixon KAL

I'm probably not going to be of much help, but I have a similar issue with the bathmat I'm working on. The ends of some of the rows started coming in towards the middle and the middle kind of bowed out. I think I wasn't picking up enough stitches? Or not in the right place. I've experimented as I go and my last couple sections seem ok. I'm kind of picking up an extra stitch near the ends of the rows. I don't know if I'm adding a stitch that shouldn't be there or if I'm finally doing it closer to correct.

I'm not really sure what I was doing wrong in the first place, but picking up stitches is definately something I still don't quite have mastered yet!
 

I also used a crochet hook to pick up the stitches, and I haven't had any trouble with the blocks puckering. I'm a little bit of a stickler (ok, ok - I'm obsessive-compulsive) when it comes to knitting from a pattern, so if the pattern says to pick up 9,589 stitches, I count them to make sure every little stitch is there. It's terribly compulsive, I know, but I'm accepting of that part of myself. lol I don't know if that has anything to do with the blocks not puckering or not. Good luck with yours! Don't give up!
 

Hmmm, It sounds to me like maybe you're picking up more stitches than you should on the end-of-garter-rows side. I pick up the one stitch for every garter ridge (2 rows = 1 ridge). Is this what you're doing? Garter stitch is great in the fact that it's square. If you're picking up one stitch for every row, then you're going to be in a bit of trouble I'm afraid.

HTH!!

Abi
http://abiknits.blogspot.com
 

AHA! Abi, that was exactly what I was wondering!! I *was* picking up a stitch for every garter row instead of every garter ridge and I bet that's the exact problem.

Thanks so much for everyone's input!
 

Visit my blog and scroll down a bit, and you'll see pics of how I pick up stitches along a garter ridge edge.

www.pinkalpaca.blogspot.com

Also, notice that you already have one stitch on your needle when you start picking up stitches. Remember to factor that in when you start picking up.

If I have 9 garter ridges, I shoot for having 9 or 10 stitches on my needle after picking up along the edge. If I ever discover that I have 11, I usually k2tog at the end of my first row to even things out. Hope this helps!
 

Kara: Thanks for the pictures! I've been doing something completely different. I'll have to try that and see what happens.
 

When you bind off the edge of your block, you leave one stitch on your needle. That is, you don't bind the whole thing off. You don't have to cast on again. You turn the block clockwise to the right, with that last stitch still on your right needle. You use the right needle and stick it through your work and grab your working yarn to begin picking up the stitches. So, yeah, you're just pulling in some loops to create your new cast-on row so that you can start knitting the next block.

Those two strands you see are the edge of my garter ridge "patch". You can just stick the needle through one leg of that stitch, but it creates a loose join. So I go ahead and stick it under/through the entire edge.

This is hard to explain, so here's a link to a video that helped me a lot:

http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/misc.php

Hope this helps!!