Happy #NeedleWorkMonday! Needlework experiments that did not go as planned... advice please?

Hello craftpals,

Over the weekend, I was looking at some blouses I have (and have not worn) because I felt they were a bit too short and flare for my liking. I started to think that maybe I can whip up some sort of a ribbing piece to attach to the bottom of my blouse, to:

1. make it longer
2. give a ribbing "hugging" the hips effect which I usually like from my other blouses

...One of the blouses.. I don't quite like the sleeves either

My initial thought was to knit a ribbing piece which should work well for me because it is just straight knitting and purling. Can't be that hard, right?

So I casted on 230 stitches. The pattern actually calls for 115 stitches, each for front and back pieces, but I decided to knit 1 single piece for the entire hip/waist. So, i just doubled the number of stitches and started knitting the ribbing with the pattern I found online:
Row 1 (Wrong Side): P1, *k1, p2, repeat from * to end.
Row 2 (Right Side): *K2, p1, repeat from * to last stitch, k1.

and then, I realised, something is not right because the stitches do not tally in the end and I keep missing a count. My work was quite embarrassing because I see holes here and there and some of the ribbing does not match 😫

So, I am KIVing the piece until I figure out whether to fix it or just redo the whole thing.

...KIVed piece... do you see the holes? 😟

Then, I thought, how about crocheting some lace piece instead and attach it to the blouse. I took out my crochet hook and yarn, and started crocheting a pattern with HDCs (because somehow I prefer HDC 😁). I am looking at about an 8cm piece to attach to the blouse, I started experimenting with the following pattern:

1. ch 21, turn

2. sc to the 2nd chain, all the way until the end and turn, that gives us 20 chains (I think)

3. ch 3 (this counts as 1 hdc, ch 1), skip 1 ch and hdc into the back chain of 3rd ch

4. ch 1, skip 1 ch and hdc into the back of the next chain until end of row, turn
   
   ...The back of chain

5. ch 2, 2 hdc into the space of row 1 and 2 hdc into next space until end of row, turn

6. repeat steps 3 to 5 until the piece fits the hip or waist.
   (I think this is a common pattern but I just typed it as it is based on what I did).

...The crocheted piece, still work-in-progress, but paused at the moment until I figure it out a bit more

At first I thought it turned out alright until I noticed a couple of things:

1. I think I counted wrongly for some rows, because some rows have extra spaces and chains 😖

2. I thought by crocheting a lace, I can get a similar stretchy effect as knitting a ribbing BUT I then realized that if I stretch the piece, the lace curls at the sides.. Darn, if I attach this to the blouse, it would curl too right? ( Is there any way to keep it uncurl but still have some sort of stretchy effect?
   
   ...why does it curl ? 😓

3. Maybe I should use a smaller crochet hook, to give it a tighter crochet?

4. And I got confused, which should be the right-side and wrong-side, A or B?
   
   ...Is A or B the right-side? I think it is B because the pattern looks prettier but the curling hides A side ☹️

So, here I am, contemplating whether to unravel the stitches and start all over again, both the pieces.

Appreciate any advice / thoughts / comments you have... I do hope to finish them, or at least one of them, else they will add on to my mountain stash of incomplete projects 😢.

I need to focus and not give up!

Maybe I am getting distracted watching tv 😅 I like the idea of doing needlework while watching telly but it does get distracting sometimes, especially when you are not that good at it and especially more when you need to count the stitches.

Thank you for dropping by and wishing all a happy week ahead!