Why are the stitches increasing?

[klmpeace]

I'm working on a small bell ornament and the pattern asks me to cast on 15 stitches, then knit a row, then on the 3rd row purl 5 and knit across the rest of the row. The 4th row says to knit across. I'm then supposed to repeat the 3rd and 4th row until I've done about 28 rows. Seems easy enough to me. Except everytime I do the purl row I end up with an extra stitch. I did 28 rows and ended up with a very strange shape and no matter what I tried I could not make it look like a bell. So I started over thinking I had read the instructions wrong. But now here I am getting ready to start row 4 and I have 16 stitches instead of the original 15. What's happening? Is this supposed ot happen? Help! Thanks!

[MerigoldinWA]

I don't see anything there about any increases. So it sounds like they are accidental. There is a "sticky" thread on the "how-to" page about "mysterious extra stitches. You might look at that and see if any of them seem to be the problem.

That said, it seems like a bell, would "bell out". But they should include it in the directions.

[suzeeq]

the pattern asks me to cast on 15 stitches, then knit a row, then on the 3rd row purl 5 and knit across the rest of the row. The 4th row says to knit across.

What happened to row 2? The cast on isn't counted as a row, so you CO, knit the first row, on R 3 p5 and knit across, then knit row 4. Are you missing something?

[trvvn5]

I know that when I first started knitting I kept forgetting to the switch the placement of the yarn when I would switch between purling and knitting. Maybe you are doing this. You essentially end up doing a kind of modified yarn over if you don't switch the yarn to the back before knitting and the front before purling.