I’m knitting a simple cabled hat that has six-stitch cables with rows of purled stitches in between the cabled columns. The hat looked fine until I got to the decreasing part. The instructions for decreasing state to “K6, p2tog, purl to marker, repeat from * to end of round”. When I follow those directions, I end up with these big gaps between the cable and the purled stitches (I hope that makes sense). I thought maybe it was a problem with my tension (because my purl stitches are generally looser than my knit stitches), so I ripped the hat back, and started over with the decreases, giving the yarn a tug before and after the decreases but am getting the same result. What would cause this, and is there anything I can do about it?
Do the holes persist even after knitting on? It’s normal to see holes on the needle next to the stitch, but the holes should close up on subsequent rows, so you should knit on and look at it again and not worry too much. I’m sure it will turn out fine
The yarn has a longer way to go on a purl stitch than a knit stitch and it can cause a gap. You can wrap the first purl stitch the “wrong way” which is under instead of over and it twists the stitch and makes it tighter. It will only show on the back so on a hat it makes no difference.
Here’s my blog where I comment on this. It’s about ribbing, but works on cables, too.
One other thought now…if you were knitting on a 16 inch circular needle have you switched to double points or another method so the stitches aren’t stretched out? That may solve the problem entirely w/o changing the way you purl.
Thanks for the replies! Jan, yes, I’m using a 16 inch circular. I really don’t like using DPN’s (I haven’t been knitting long, so maybe they’ll get easier with time), so I just use them only when I really have to, like when I have too few stitches for my circulars. I’m going to take a look at your blog - thanks for the link!
You’re welcome!
If you don’t like DPNs you can use two circs or magic loop instead on the top of hats. I use two circs. 
After you dec a few more sts, you won’t have enough to fit around the needle, so you’ll have to use a longer needle and ML, or add another circ to use two of them.