Oh, I figured out what I was doing wrong. I was skipping a loop at the first of a row (as if I was doing double or treble crochet) and then trying to eek out a loop to pick up at the end to make my stitch count. No wonder it was looking a mess.
Still, does the side of a crocheted piece look less uniform than the top? You know where you have a row of perfect double threads forming loops along the top...yet the sides are not so?
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