There are some great ideas in the comments to Friday’s post and I experimented with some of them over the weekend.
First, a model and a bit of info so you know how I did things :)
I used the same yarn, needles and pattern for each swatch. The yarn was Peaches ‘n cream cotton and the needles were size 7 (4.5mm). The pattern is one of the halves of the Dragon Skin pattern. I chose this to work with because it shows both right-leaning decreases (RLDs) and left-leaning decreases (LLDs). The little call-outs in the above picture show you the lines both decreases follow. That will be the same in every picture that follows. All that has changed is the method used to perform the LLDs.
Sl1-K1-psso
This one is the first one I learned and, as far as I know, is the oldest method of the lot. The LLD is performed by slipping the first stitch from the left to the right needle. The next stitch on the left needle is knitted and then the slipped stitch is picked up, passed over the knitted stitch and dropped off the right needle. It’s not really sloppy, but you can see that the stitches don’t line up smoothly - in fact it looks as though every other stitch is looking the opposite way.
SSK (slip, slip, knit)
I ran into this in the Barbara Walker treasuries first, but didn’t fully understand how it worked until I read Nicky Epstein’s Knitted Embellishments. I find this technique faster than the first one, but also sloppier as (at least in my idiosyncratic knitting) both the slipped stitches get loose. For this method, slip the first stitch on the left needle knitwise, then do the same for the next stitch on the left needle. You now have two slipped stitches on the end of your right needle. Insert the left needle into the front of these stitches. Bring the yarn over from behind and down between the needles to knit these two stitches together.
SSK variation
This is performed very similarly to the last method but the way the stitches are slipped in the first step is different. In this case, the first stitch is slipped knitwise and the second stitch is slipped purlwise before they are knitted together off the right hand needle.
Knit 2 together through the back loops
This is probably the quickest path to an LLD, easy and fast. Insert the right needle into the back loops of both the first and second stitches on the left hand needle and knit them together. While the stitches this technique produces aren’t unattractive, they bear no resemblance to the neat row of RLDs on the left-hand side of the piece.
There were also a couple of suggestions late Sunday. Jo Ellyn suggested slipping the first stitch of an SSK purlwise, slipping the second knitwise and then knitting them together from the right hand needle. I’m glad she suggested the possibility because I never thought of it. I will certainly give it a shot and see how it looks. Likewise, Kimberly also mentioned a variation on the SSK which consisted of slipping the first stitch knitwise, the second stitch purlwise and then knitting them together through the back loops. I’ll try this too :)
I think part of the intrinsic problem with the LLD is that it is a two-step process (at least!) where the K2tog is not. Each of the above pictured methods are long-used and well-loved by many knitters. However, while I do use them, none of them give me the exact mirror of that neat, K2tog decrease curve and that’s what I’m looking for.
Onwards :)
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Hi Robbyn,
Thanks for posting the pictures of the different LLDs. It’s great to see them in action and how each looks different. I’d never really seen them side-by side before. This will certainly help me pick the one most appropriate to whatever project I’m working on.
Cheers!
Maura :)
My pleasure Maura - I wanted to see what they looked like “side-by-side” too. Glad you think it might be useful to you :)
ah, robbyn, somewhere deep inside you there lurks a teacher!! a good one too- i’d never even thought about all those different decreases, much less compared them- because i am a true lemming at heart, i’ve always just ‘gone with the pattern’(and the results have often been quite lumpy)- surely, somewhere out there, there’s a really smooth mirror image technique-
critical knitting- scary!!
stay happy-
Barb - Actuaslly, I think somewhere deep inside me lurks a pedant and I keep trying to sit on her because she’s just annoying. But, sigh, she does pop out now and again :)
I’m now doing the decreases for the Komi Cap. (I thought I had 10 rows before the decreases on Thursday, it was closer to 20. I told y’all I can’t count.) I’m not liking the lld either. I don’t pass anything over. That looks way sloppy and not anything like the other of the pair, to me anyway. I slip both sts K , one at a time then knit together. Then after I take the next K I pull the yarn really snug and readjust to try to get the lld to lay the same as the rld. Whew. I hope it all lays flat when I’m done. I think the problem is a result of the direction we are knitting. If we were going right to left, like Flora does we’d probably have the same problem except it’d be the rld we didn’t like.
Great job explaining and illustrating it all. I’m sure glad I knit much better than I blog, cause that is not working at all.
Aarlene - I’m certain you’re right - that the direction has a lot to do with it. But I keep thinking ther must be some way to overcome that. Tightening up on the next K1 seems like something to try…
You know, I’m what you would call an intermediate knitter. However, I’ve always had problems with the whole SSK thing (I always do s1, k1 psso). Somehow, you broke thru my jumbled lil head to make the execution of SSK click! Thanks!
Elizabeth - Yee hah! Don’t you just love that sensation when the lightbulb goes on in your head? Quite addicting :)
What about the slip slip purl method (the last one shown on knittinghelp - http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/basic_techniques/decrease.php - it looks the best of all the ones she has listed.
Beanmama - I went and looked at your link. That does look very nice indeed. Reading the directions for it I remembered seeing it before. I believe it’s used to decrease the tops of the two-needle mittens in Lily Chin’s <u>Urban Knitter</u>. I’ll have to remember that trick when I’ve got an occassional LLD - for something with a lot of LLDs, I imagine it would get pretty tedious.
Well, that said, I can still see myself doing it just to be anal :)
