Hi new knitter here, I’m having trouble with my decreases in the round. I understand the concept, but there are a couple things that are throwing me. The first is that a lot of hat patterns say to knit an even or ‘plain’ round after each decrease. What’s throwing me is this: Let’s say I’ve cast on 80 st and am ready for my first decrease, so I have 8 sets of 10 st. So I k8 k2tog all the way around on the first decrease round. The next round is supposed to be knit plain and here’s where my question comes in, and the source of my confusion. Do I mind the decrease and just knit another identical round of k8 k2tog with the same decrease, or do I break up my decrease and do 80 st again? I can’t seem to find my answer anywhere please help!!!
If you start with 80 sts and as you say knit 8 and k2tog around you’ll wind up with 72 sts (8 decreases). On the second round, knit these 72 (that is, knit plain). On the next decrease round, consider it 8 sets of 9 sts and k7, k 2tog ending up with 64 sts (8 decreases). If the next row is knit plain, just knit these 64.
You don’t want to go back to 80 sts, you want to keep decreasing the number of sts on the needles. I hope this helps?
After each knit plain round you go down one number. So if you cast on a multiple of 10 you’d decrease like this-
k8, k2tog
knit even
k7, k2tog
knit even
k6, k2tog
knit even
etc… the only reason this wouldn’t work is if you miss a decrease or add one extra.
Make sense?
You knit a round with NO decs on it in between the dec rounds rounds. Each dec round after the first one, you knit 1 less stitch between the knit 2 togs. There may be a few rounds toward the end where you dec on every round but it tells you that.
I feel like I’m getting closer to an answer, thanks everyone! but maybe I need to be more detailed in my question. Aside from my math being off (lol) I know that if you start with 80 st and decrease one round that you end up with 72 st. For the next plain round, I DO knit the 72 [B]individual[/B] stitches like I’d never decreased?
Salmonmac, reread your post and that answers my question thanks!
Yes. A ‘plain’ round means it’s one with no decs in it.
I wish you many fabulous knitted hats from now on!
Yeah, it’s basically just saying to knit without decreasing for one row after a decrease row. The next row after that can again be a decrease… then a non-decrease. This stems from… flat knit patterns will have you decrease on the knit side, which is the right side. So, with a flat knit pattern, you would knit and decrease on the knit row, then purl it without decreasing, then back to a knit and decreases. This also allows a more gradual look to your decreases, so that it won’t look like a sharp-sided cone when you’re done.