I am about to begin forming armholes on the back section of the sweater I’m knitting. I have 97 stitches on the needle and am knitting in st-st. The pattern reads “Work 6 rows dec 1 st at each end of every row.”
I am used to decreasing on both ends of a row and making sure one decrease slants left and one slants right. Do I need to pay attention to slant? If I k2tog at the end of a knit row, what decrease should I use at the end of the following purl row?
Most decs are done so they slant toward the center so if you use the k2tog at the end, then use the ssk or sl k psso at the beginning.
I usually use a SSK of some variety at the beginning of the knit rows and a K2tog at the end of the row. It is nice to make them 1 or 2 stitches in from the edge. If the decrease falls on a purl row, at the beginning I would P2tog, and at the end of the row I’d use P2tog through the back loop. (Again in from the edge)There may be others that would work too. At the beginning of a purl row you want a dec that will slant right on the right side of the work, at the end of the row a dec that will slant to the left on the right side. You can check out the decreases on the drop down menu at the top under “Free Videos” and pick another one if you like or learn the one I gave if you don’t know how to do it.
Sometimes folks like to make just the opposite decreases from what I gave, for a different look. But that is another kettle of fish.
Oh dear, I went ahead and used SSK at the beginning and K2tog at the end. But I did this on both the knit and purl rows. No wonder it was looking funky. Now I am going to have to ‘unknit’ teh 6 rows and figure out how to put the decreases back on the needle. I’m 55 years old wish my Mom was here to do that for me. She was my rescue when I messed something up! Trying to learn it for myself without wasting this expensive yarn!
Why do you have to undo it? Because you did knit decs on the purl rows? Unless you did them in the very edge sts, you can drop the sts down over them and redo them as purl decs. There’s a video on the Tips page for dropping sts and picking them up.
The decs are at the very beginning and very end of each row. The way I did it looks pretty sloppy and I’m not sure its bring the sleeve opening in enough. It would probably work, but I"m not confident enough it would be clear to me where to pick up stitches since it looks ‘all over the place’. I’ve got lots of time. Might as well do it right. I’ll learn a new stitch (P2tog though the back loop) too!