How do you decrease in garter stitch? Do you knit 2 together and purl 2 together or am I mistaken? Is ssk or ssp involved or any other methods I’m unaware of? Also should I worry about which way the decrease leans? Thanks!
How to Decrease in Garter Stitch
It may depend on the pattern and on how you are knitting garter stitch.
Knitting flat you can work k2tog or ssk depending on how you would like the stitches to lean.
In the round, the same would be true on knit rounds. On purl rounds you could try decreases in purl or perhaps change the decreases to the knit rounds where they tend to disappear into the knit sts.
Hello
I am not very experienced but for me it matters sometimes which way they lean.
If it is shaping for waist or chest on a top I would want them to mirror so I would do a k2tog an mirror it with a ssk (or s1, k1,psso is in most of the patterns I’ve done but I didn’t like the look of this in my yarn, it looked baggy so I changed it) or a sytk (a bit tighter than ssk).
However I have done some lace pattern on a top where the decreases are not mirrored but instead are all k2tog.
So really it depends what you are making and where the decrease is positioned and what it’s for.
The top I switched the s1 k1 psso to a sytk I was using a cotton linen drape and really it was the nature of the yarn that lead me to some changes in how I worked the pattern, I used a smaller needle, the sytk to tighten the decreases and in addition I pulled the yarn right across the row after I had finished to take up some of the “extra” yarn and spread it across the row. Other yarns I’ve used have been much more forgiving and easier to knit up and I have not used sytk.
Thank you so much!
Thank you!!