Decrease 5 sts tog

How-to Questions
1

I’m swatching the charts for Alice Starmore’s St Ciaran shawl and ran into these instructions on Chart B:

sl decrease 5 sts tog thus - sl 3 knitwise, one at a time, with yarn at back, drop yarn, then * pass the second st on right hand needle over the first (centre) st; sl the centre st back to left hand needle and pass the next st on left hand needle over it**; sl the centre st back to right hand needle and rep from * to ** once more; p the centre st

I managed to get the five stitches down to one stitch, but I’m not sure if I’ve done it right and can’t find a picture of what it should look like. I’m hoping someone has knit this shawl and can tell me what it looks like and any helpful hints would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

2

I haven’t done the shawl, but I’ve done the stitch.

Imagine that your 5 stitches are labeled A B C D E

By passing the stitches back and forth on the needles, you end up putting
the 4 outer stitches over C–first D, then B, then E, then A.

3

Ingrid

Thanks so much for the explanation - it really helps make it clearer. Can you direct me to a picture of what a successfully completed 5 stitch decrease looks like.

Thanks again for you help, much appreciated.