Learning to knit (VIII) : Knitting decreases

    Today we are going to learn the most common ways to remove stitches, decreasing just one stitch. Other day I will show you other ways to decrease one stitch and how to decrease two stitches. The decrease will make the points lean towards the right or towards the left. Depending on what we are knitting, we will need the points to lean towards one or the other, or it would be indifferent. 

  

    There are two main ways to decrease stitches, knit two together (K2tog) or slip, knit, pass over (SKP or sl1, k1, psso). In the instructions we usually will find which one we have to use. If not, knit two together is usually employed.

• Knit two together (K2tog). This decreasing makes the stitches lean towards the right. What you have to do is what the name says : you have to knit two stitches together, as if they were just one stitch. You can see it in these photos.

• Purl two together (P2tog). This decreasing makes the stitches lean towards the left. It is the same as in the previous case, but this time we are purling the stitches, so we have to purl two stitches as if they were one.

• Slip, knit, pass over (SKP or sl1, k1, psso). This decreasing makes the stitches lean towards the left. We slip one stitch, we insert the right needle as if to purl, but we take the stitch out without knitting or purling it. We knit the next stitch, ant the slipped stitches is taken over the knitted stitch. In the following photos you can see how to slip the stitch in 1, 2 and 3. In photos 4 and 5 you can see how to take the slipped stitch over the knitted stitch.

    The decreases can be made in the middle of the work. It can be because the garment needs to be narrowed or because the lace pattern we are knitting needs it. Most the lace pattern needs decreases and increases to knit them. We can also find the decreases in the edges of the work, for example if we are knitting a pullover and we have reached the armhole. In this case, if we use the same technique to remove points in both sides, the result is going to be different in each of the sides.

  

    To get the same ending in both sides we can use different strategies:

• We can use sl1, k1, psso on the right edge of the work and K2tog on the left edge of the work if we are knitting that row. If we are purling the row, we can use P2tog on the right edge of the work and K2tog on the left edge of the work. This way both edges will be very similar.

    In this sample sl1, k1, psso has been used on the right edge of the work and K2tog has been used on the left edge of the work. The decreases has only been made in the knitted rows, the purled rows have no decreases. As you can see, the edge looks like a chain.

• We can use edge or selvage stitches. I have not explained them yet, I will make a post with different ways of making edge stitches. The most common way to make this is by slipping the first stitch and knitting the last stitch of the row. These will be the edge stitches, and the decreases will be made just after the first stitch and before the last stitch.

• We can use other ways of decreasing that will result in a decorative finishing. But this also requieres a complete post.

    Do you find it easy? Do you prefer that I use photographs or videos to explain how to do the things?