If you are knitting in stockinette, it will curl. You need to do several stitches on each eadge in garter or seed stitch. If you really love the look of stockinette, and want to knit stripes, you can use a light weight yarn and knit it in the round, and just sew the ends shut. There will be no curl, and all the color changes will be concealed inside the tube.
I have been doing this for years - works great. It will also help you keep the edges nice and straight when you block, which will also straighten it out when you are done. Just make sure when you slip the stitches (always purlwise) your yarn is in front on the purl side (WS) of your stockinette row and in the back of your knit (RS) row. Give a little tug after you knit/purl the first stitch the tighten the edge and it will bend towards the wrong side and leave a nice edge. Depending on the design of your scarf, you may need to add 4 extra stitches (2 on each end) to your pattern. If you are knitting something that will be seamed, slip only one stitch for a smooth seamable edge.
Slip the first stitch, always. If there is no pattern youre following do a garter or seed stitch for the first few stitches, how many would depend on needle size and stitch count
talk about edge roll ! I am knitting Beads of Earth, a scarf in the Scarf Style book (which i luckily get at my library) after the initial bead work (lots of fun) the scarf is stockinette / i knew this would roll and so it did / i tried different methods to avoid it but adding even one stitch at each edge threw the balance of the bead work off / i decided i LIKE THE ROLL (please excuse shouting/smile) / let's see, why wd i like the roll ? well, the piece is more of a neck thingie / i can see in the picture that wrapped around the neck is the roll so i went ahead with it / i love this piece so much for the colors (very southwestern where i live) that i have gone ahead
see that roll ! one picture is the back side of the beadwork
Heres a fix for those rolled edges that really works
Slip the FIRST TWO stitches of EACH row (one end only not both ends of a row)
On RS (KNIT side), slip 2 stitches purlwise with yarn held in back
On WS (PURL side), slip 2 stitches purlwise with yarn held in front
Low and behold it has cured the "age old" problem. Knitting stockinette that doesn't roll in on itself. The only other alternative I've found was to knit/crochet a border around your piece to add weight to the edges.
Good luck
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