Saturday, March 6, 2010

The Saturday Stitch: Decrease

This week's stitch is a companion piece to the last one. It's used mainly in situations where you need to shape a piece. This could mean shaping a head for an amigurumi doll or making neck straps for a baby bib.

Here's a picture:

This is a single crochet decrease. Essentially, you just insert your hook into the designated next 2 stitches and pull up a loop in each one. Then pull through all the loops on your hook. When adapting this to a double crochet decrease, you just yarn over before inserting the hook into the designated stitches. Pull through the first loop, leave the second loop alone until you've gone in all the designated stitches. Then pull through all loops left on hook.

Here's a picture of that:




The example pattern I have for this isn't one I've tried yet, just one I've stocked away for when I had plenty of leftover yarn. This can either be a blanket, or hung in a corner of a bedroom ceiling, holding stuffed animals. It's basically a crocheted triangle, and once I give it a try I'll post a better picture.



Triangle Blanket


Materials:
-lots of yarn.
-K hook




Ch an even number plus 1 if you're doing sc. Add 2 if you're doing dc. These are the turning chains. As you're making the chains, measure how wide you want the triangle, once you get the width you want, add the turning chain (or chains) and start the blanket.

Foundation Row: either sc (or dc) in each ch across. Ch 1 (or 2). Turn.
Row 2: Work a decrease in first 2 stitches. sc (or dc) in each stitch across until you reach the last 2 sc (or dc). work decrease.

Repeat Row 2 until you run out of stitches. The rows should get smaller and smaller. If you run into a situation where you have 3 stitches in a row, just work the decrease in all three of the stitches. It will bring them down to one stitch. Cut your yarn and tuck away the ends in the blanket.


Like I said, I'll be working on this soon and once I have it all figured out I will post a pattern in pictures perhaps. Good luck and as always, email me any pictures of my projects you've made. I'll post them on here. Send any pictures or questions to armyofowls@gmail.com.

1 comment:

  1. I am so glad that I have this as a crochet reference so when the mood hits me again I won't be totally lost, especially trying new patterns.

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