Why does my knitted blankets roll up on the sides?

Question

I have a plain knitting machine all I use it for is to make small blankets for charity. I have just done my first one and the sides are rolled up. What have I done wrong. I have tried different tensions but it didn't make any difference.

Answer 1

Putting on my Karnac hat here (sorry, but if you only know of Jay Leno as the host of the Tonight Show, it's an old reference to a Johnny Carson skit).  I'm betting you knit this in stockinette stitch (knit one row, purl one row) and did not add any non-rolling edge stitches.  The nature of stockinette is that it curls because the geometry of knit stitches and purl stitches is different.  Knit stitches are rectangular and purls are square.  The yarn, OTOH, wants them all to be the same shape and pulls them to try and make them do this (no changing your tension will not help) and the result is curling.  Knitting machines knit in stockinette, it's what they do.  Just like knitting in the round the knitting is all done on one face of the fabric and makes stockinette.  What many machine knitters will do is either knit these in two pieces, or double long and fold them right sides out and seam them together, since the seaming aspect will cancel the roll.  Or you can hand knit or crochet a border of about 2 inches in width all the way around the blanket, picking up stitches from the edges.  If you knit the border you need to do this in either garter, moss or seed stitch, none of which roll and which all help to contain the rolling aspect of stockinette.

Answer 2

i think it may be because your stitches may be a little too tight and are curling up because of it. try gently stretching them out.

Answer 3

there is nothing wrong, its just hte way the yarn is taking to the stitch (the needles may be too small) but thats ok.  what you need to do when your are finised is block your project.  all that means is you need to get your project wet (for blankets i usually use a spary bottle on both sides) and lay it on a flat surface (i usually use my kitchen table)  it will dry flat and stay flat.

Answer 4

It is rolling because it is in stockinette stitch.  With stockinette stitch more of the yarn is on one side of the piece so it rolls because it's basically trying to fit/spread out (I hope that made sense).  

Unless you have a double bedded knitting machine you can only do stockinette stitch. On single bed machines you can only do the knit stitch and since your work is not being turned it comes out like as stockinette stitch (like when knitting in the round). To do other stitches you have to go back after it is finished (but not bound off) and still on the bed, and take off one stitch, unravel it all the way to the bottom, and do it back up to the top in the stitch pattern by hand.  This is takes a long time and it very tedious.  

You can try blocking it (wetting it, and pin it out or put it under something heavy till it dries) which should help a bit.

Answer 5

What a nice thing to do!

You've done nothing wrong. That is the nature of knit. If you try making a border of ribbing, that may help with the curling.

Answer 6

Can you change your stitches so that it does some purl/knit stitches around the edges of your blanket? I don't know about knitting machines but I know that when you are hand knitting stockinette stitch you want to do the edges in garter stitch.