How to decrease in this (simple?) openwork pattern! Help!

Hi
I am taking a break from knitting clothes for my gorgeous 2 yr old granddaughter and am treating myself to a knitted openwork shrug/coverup in a lovely cotton blend pale sage green yarn.

I am knitting the Round Neck Cardigan on King Cole’s 4456 pattern (King Cole Vogue yarn) – it is an easy ‘crochet-look’ pattern and is knitting up really well.

Pattern row is: K2, yfwd, yrn, P2 tog, rep from * to last 2 sts, K2. This is then just repeated throughout.

BUT I have now come to ‘Shape ‘ and am stuck on how to do the decrease and yet retain this pattern at the same time…

Pattern reads ‘Work 5 rows, dec 1 st at each end of every row’. But if I decrease a stitch at each end over the next 5 rows isn’t it going to change the pattern, especially the ‘K2’ bit at each end? How do I do this? Help!

Welcome to the forum!

Keep the k2 on either end of the row but work the decreases after the first k2 and just before the last k2 of the row. You’ll have to give up the yarn overs and the purl sts in the first and last repeats. Work those sts in whatever the background pattern stitch is, knit or purl. You’ll need to give up more repeats on each end as well in order work the decreases on the following rows.

Thanks, I will give that a go if I can work it out! Although I am still really confused and don’t really know how to proceed after retaining the K2 at each end. I DID wonder whether this would even matter, given that I am working on the Back and the decreases are to create the armhole shaping?

It looks like the row is:
K2, yfwd, (yrn, P2 tog) , rep from * to last 2 sts, K2.
That uses 2sts for each repeat.

If I put in a couple more of the repeats it becomes:
K2, yfwd, (yrn, P2 tog) (yrn, P2 tog) (yrn, P2 tog) , rep from * to last 2 sts, K2.

Instead of working the first and last repeat use those 2sts for the decrease. You’ll be giving up the repeats on each end and using the sts for the decreases.
K2, ssk, (yrn, P2 tog) k2tog, K2.

Thanks for explaining in detail - that works!

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