When we shape a project worked in 1×1 ribbing, we want the decreases to look the same on both sides of the fabric. It is especially important for reversible hats, cowls, cardigans and other projects that don’t hide their wrong side.
I encountered this issue as I was designing a warm highly textured hat made with two colours. The idea was to make the hat fully reversible, so that we could easily turn it inside out when we want to show off a different colour.
The hat is worked in a textured pattern that is based on “knit 1, purl 1” ribbing. When the time came to shape the crown, I tested various ways to make reversible decreases and came up with a method that is easy, fast and gentle to our wrists (no purling through the back loop involved).
I am happy to share this method with all of you, my friends, in this detailed step-by-step tutorial.
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When we want to make decreases reversible, we need to decrease two stitches – one knit and one purl. This approach keeps the pattern intact, and we can easily continue to “knit 1, purl 1” after we get rid of those two stitches. No need to adjust the pattern.
The problem is that our knits and purls are alternating, so we can’t knit two together or purl two together without repositioning the stitches. To keep the process sample (no additional tools like a cable needle) and safe (stitches are never left unattended) we’ll slip stitches from needle to needle.
Don’t worry, it takes only five simple steps to make these neat reversible decreases, and because it is much easier to work these decreases starting with a knit stitch, that’s what we are going to do as we work through the step-by-step instructions below.
STEP 1
As you get to the knit stitch that you plan to decrease, bring the working yarn to the back of the work. Then insert the tip of the right needle into that knit stitch from left to right.
Ease the left needle out, slipping this stitch knitwise to the right needle.
STEP 2
With the slipped stitch still sitting on the right needle, insert the tip of the right needle from left to right into the next two stitches as if you plan to knit them together.
Of course, we won’t knit these stitches together as that would completely ruin our ribbing pattern. Instead, we take the left needle out leaving the stitches on the right needle.
STEP 3
Now it is time to return the slipped stitches to the left needle. We start by dealing with the purl stitch that is one of the two stitches we slipped in the previous step.
Insert the tip of the left needle from right to left into that purl stitch (it will be the first stitch from the tip of the right needle).
Take it off the right needle.
Now the stitches are rearranged into a group of two knits and a group of two purls.
STEP 4
In this step, we’ll return the two slipped knit stitches to the left needle and knit them together through the back loop in the most efficient way.
To do that, insert the tip of the left needle from left to right into both slipped stitches sitting on the right needle. Do it in such a way that the right needle stays at the back of the left needle. Make sure the yarn is still at the back of the work.
Wrap the tip of the right needle with the yarn as we do when we knit a stitch.
Pull this wrap through knitting these two stitches together through the back loop.
STEP 5
There is nothing tricky happening in this step – we simply bring the yarn to the front of the work and purl the next two stitches together, as usual, through the front loop.
We’ve just decreased two stitches without disrupting the ribbing pattern. Each decrease slants to the left on the right side of the fabric, and to the right on the wrong side of the fabric, but both sides look great without any bumps that are usually formed by purls.
The process is the same whether we decrease stitches of a project worked back and forth or a the one worked in the round.
HERE’S A VIDEO TUTORIAL THAT SHOWS EVERY STEP
Because these decreases form lines leaning in different directions on different sides of the fabric, this is not the best method to use when we need to make fully fashioned shaping, but this is a great way to make decreases when we shape a crown of a hat, decrease stitches evenly throughout a row or round, or in other situations when the slant of the decreasing line is not that important.
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This and 36 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #7.