Hello. I’m hoping to get some help deciphering the decreases in my knitting pattern. I’ve worked according to the pattern and I’ve ended up with too many stitches. Looking at the pattern I’m not sure where I’ve gone wrong.
I’m working the left front panel which, after the ribbing, follows a 12 row repeating cable pattern. It says to work up the pattern ending on the 4th row.
On the 5th row:
Pattern to last 3sts, patt2tog, K1. 76sts
On the 6th row:
P1, pattern to end.
Then it says to work 40 rows more Dec 1 st at neck edge as before in 5th and every following 6th row. 70sts
I’ve worked the pattern and 40 rows later I have 74sts. I figured I probably should’ve been decreasing in row 6 as well but looking at the same part of the pattern for the right front panel it says
Welcome to KH!
Oh, that is ambiguous! It means dec every 6th row that you work not not dec on only the 6th row of the 12 pattern rows.
That would mean that you dec on row 6 as given in the pattern (76sts) then dec on rows 11,17,23,29,35,41.(70sts)
Your knitting is so beautiful and neat. It’s going to be a lovely cardigan.
Thank you so much! It’s just clicked. Now it makes sense how I can decrease twice as often. I’ll still probably have to unravel and start again (I haven’t figured out how to undo mistakes yet) but at least I’ll know how to knit it properly this time
I can’t be sure from your photo, but it looks like you started doing decreases and then did some increases instead, because the edge curves back outward, and I count 12 crossing points at the bottom, then 11, and then 12 again. So I’m afraid you will need to rip back to the start of the decreases.
You should be decreasing on Rows 5 and “the following 6th row”, which would be Row 11 of your cable pattern.
Row 5 = 76 sts
Row 11 = 75
Row 5 = 74
Row 11 = 73
Row 5 = 72
Row 11 = 71
Row 5 = 70
And a couple extra rows to make 40.
To make this easier to count and keep track of–how many stitches does your cable pattern take? Subtract that from your starting #, and then you only have to count and re-count 20-some stitches, rather than 70+.
I wish I had a better solution for you. Maybe someone else will have something clever, but I suspect you’ll have to rip back to where you started the decreases. In any case, you’ll still have the other front to do, and setting lifelines could be a big help.
