Crochet emergency! Very basic assistance requested

[poachedeggs]

First attempt. Make a monkey kit, age 7 and up. I'm 32

I'm making a tail first. 6 stitches. I've dropped some along the way and it's become very narrow and tight, and difficult to switch around the pipe cleaner centre.

Is this salvageable or do I need to bin it? :(

Just do a couple more rows so the finished tail is the right size / dimensions, it'll be fine.

I'm just going in tiny tight circles though, I'm not sure how to add more stitches back in!

Sorry, I'm struggling to picture this. Can you find a picture of said monkey on the internet?

I presumed it'd have a long tail behind it, with a pipe cleaner running though it, but obviously not if you're doing rounds.

Sorry no joy! It's a tail like you describe. I started with 6 stitches then went back to the first stitch for the 7th so it goes round and round - does that explain it better? So it's a sort of long tube, or it should be but I seem to only have about 3 stitches per layer now.

Unravel it back to where you last had your full compliment of stitches from round, if you've got say 3 full rounds, then it tails off, then you increase back to 6 stitches, it'll look patchy and money will have a hole in his tail. You need stiches on the row below to attach your new stitches into, rather than just adding extra stitches in on this row.

I feared this!

It's so hard to see what's what, it's a bit of a mess and the yarn is untwisting so it's hard to work out where one stitch ends and the next begins. I'm also not entirely clear on which bit of the stitch I'm supposed to catch with the next round.

I think I should have thought better of it when it was apparent that the instruction sheet is a product of Google Translate!

Thanks for your help :)

The tops on the stitches look a bit like a "v" you need to catch both of the "arms" with your hook if that makes any sense?

Oh no, so I should have 3 loops on the hook when I pull the yarn through? I've gone very very wrong in that case!

I think you will have to frog it and have aoother go. How does it start?

Ok I abandoned the tail and tried the head. It's 'single stitch' apparently. The body looks lots better, I spent ages on it this afternoon and really enjoyed it, it's so therapeutic!

I think I was doing the tail wrong, I was hooking and pulling once instead of hooking and pulling twice per stitch. Does any of that make sense?!

When I said body there I meant head!

I think hooking and pulling is just a single stitch isn't it? Im a noob so dont quot anything I say but I think what you should have been doing was yarn over into stitch yarn over pull back yarn over pull through three loops yarn over pull through remaining two (dbl crochet) im only saying cos ive just made monster horns that were tubey like your tail and thats what I had to do

If it says single stitch I'd assume it's American as we don't have a single stitch in UK terminology, we'd call it double crouched. It kind of sounds like you've been doing slip stitches. I'd recommend looking at some YouTube clips to check how to do the stitch, and pull your work back to where you're confident it's right. Otherwise the tail will be all thick and thin. Good luck!

Crouched = crochet, sorry.

I'm also wondering if you are supposed to work round and round in a spiral, or if you're supposed to complete one round at a time, if that makes sense? If it's the latter, you would need to work one chain at the start of each round, to bring you up to the right height. If you're missing that out it might make your work tight.

Sorry if that's unclear, will come back when not on phone as typing is a pain.