I am new at knitting and trying to make a simple Ripple afghan. The pattern tells you how many stitches to cast on, but not what type of cast on stitch. I want the afghan not to curl and want the top and bottom of afghan to match. Please help. thank you
On the sides of the afghan a small border of seed stitch or garter stitch will keep it from curling, the same stitches can be used on the ends. When I made my son and daughter-in-law’s afghan I used a border of seed stitch on the sides that equaled the width of the seedstitch border on the end. And since I gave it to them , it has never curled yet. I knitted it in cotton yarn and it has been with them since my son was stationed in Key West FL. Now he is in Norfolk VA. and the afghan went with them.
One way to make the cast on and bound off edges the same is to do a provisional cast on. When you’re finished with the afghan, bind off as you like. Then go back to the provisional cast on and take out the scrap yarn and bind off the now live sts in the same manner. There’s a video of one way to do provisional cast on at the top of the page under Free Videos, Cast ons.
I actually don’t think anyone will notice if the cast on and bind off differ, but if it matters to you, then this is one way to do it.
It doesn’t matter which cast on you use, none of them cause curling. Curling happens when you use stockinette st - knit 1 row, purl 1 row. So you need to do several rows of garter or seed stitch to help keep the cast on and bind off edges from flipping on you. Also several sts at the beginning and ends of the rows to help flatten the side edges.