A friend just dropped by a blanket her niece is knitting and it has a problem I have never seen before. It is fine on the left side but the right side is way too tight. It is almost like she is working with 2 different sizes of needles. She included the size 8s, the yarn and the pattern she is doing.
I can't understand how she can be doing so differently on each size. The yarn is Simply Soft. Any ideas? I can't take a picture but it is just like she is using a size 8 on one side and a size 5 on the other. This makes no sense to me and I have no answers for her. I can understand a different gauge on different rows or between the knit and purl rows, but not from side to side.

Is it an abrupt change, or gradual? It might have to do with how she holds the needles. If she holds them in such a way that she lets go of the right needle, for example, in order to knit a stitch, maybe by the time she gets half way across the weight of the thing would pull the stitches somehow? Except it'd do that on the way back so the second half of the purl row would be stretched out, too, which would balance it out, wouldn't it?

Hmmm.

It has to have something to do with the way she holds the needles. You'd really have to watch her knit to see what's going on.

Is it the same stitch pattern all the way across, or does something different happen part way across that might make her change how she throws or holds the needles? Is the pattern on the WS all purl, or a mix of knit and purl?

It never occurred to me that how she holds the needles might be the culprit. The pattern is a series of different types of cabled sections. The first two cables are fine but when she gets just past the third section, the tension changes. You might be right as the yarn is much heavier than she is used to. I will sit and watch her work and see what it is that she does differently.
The difference in gauge ion the right side is 3 extra sts per 4 inches which will have the piece looking like it was made for the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

If they are all different cables, the stitch gauge *isn't* going to match. Each cable pulls in a different amount, and the occasional cable pattern will end up wider than stockinette stitch. (cable patterns that have some eyelets, for example)

If it's the *row* gauge that's a problem, then that's something different.

Is this a pattern she made up herself, or is it a published pattern? Have you seen a photo of what the finished afghan will look like?

Do you have some place where you can post a photo so we can see what the afghan looks like?

She has taken stitch patterns from 3 books to make the blanket. She usually works this way on doing shawls or baby clothes, but this is the first time she has done a blanket. She just wrote down the patterns so she could keep track of them.
I have done up a copy of the pattern and have no problem with it being even. Her rows and sts are off. She has too much space between each ros on the one side and too many sts. I will see her this weekend when she comes to visit her aunt and we will sit and work together so I can see what she does. It's just like she gets incredibly tired when she hits a certain spot and relaxs her work completely then wakes up on the way back. I have taught and helped a lot of people but never run into a problem like this.
I will try to get a digital camera and post a picture. The cats knocked mine off the shelf and it won't work any more for some reason.