- [Kristen] Today on the How to Loom Knit series,
we'll be working on decreases.
We're taking it up a notch with Lesson 9.1,
working with five decreases.
We'll be taking two stitches down to one
with the k2tog and the ssk.
We'll talk a little bit more about this
so you can apply it to any pattern.
As well as working these three stitches down to one
with the knit three together,
or the slip, slip, slip, knit,
which is sssk.
And the center double decrease, or CDD,
here on "GoodKnit Kisses." (upbeat music)
Welcome to "GoodKnit Kisses."
We're all about helping you stitch your love
and love your stitches.
For more information on decreases on our website
please click down in the link below in our description,
and also the video for decreases
you can see up here as well.
For supplies, just like our increase video,
you need a loom and a yarn appropriate to that loom,
plus your loom tool,
and a stitch marker, or markers,
to mark the two stitches or three stitches
that you want to get down to one.
I'm using a flexible rubber band,
and here I've marked the middle three stitches
to take this down as a three to one decrease.
So grab your tools and we'll begin.
With decreases, the most important thing
is knowing if you need to make your knitting
work to the left
or work to the right.
That's really the big takeaway
that I want you to get from this.
Because if you ever get a pattern
and it starts saying something
or a different abbreviation you're not familiar with,
you can go and look at the picture
of what you're working for,
and make sure
that you want it to lean a certain direction or not.
And if it's unclear
and it just gives a general decrease instruction,
then you can decide,
yes, you can decide,
if you want that stitch to lean a certain direction or not.
Sot the main takeaway from this is
I want you to know
that whether you're working
from the right side of the loom to the left,
or the left to the right,
it doesn't matter,
you can make these decreases at any point in your loom,
and I can teach you how to do that
by knowing which stitch is on the bottom.
So right here in this sample,
I've got all of these on this right side of my knitting here
leaning to the left.
You can see that these columns right here
face directionally this way, okay,
towards my left hand.
Now, the ones on the left side over here,
directionally face to the right.
So the main thing to know is how to set up the stitch
to get it across.
I will tell you a funny little trick (chuckling)
that I was taught by another designer.
She liked to say that ssks are liberal, or left-leaning,
and right-leaning decreases, or right-leaning stitches,
are conservative, they lean to the right.
And so it was easier for me to remember.
So k2togs are,
she actually used to say "k2togs are Republican,
"they lean to the right.
"And ssks lean to the left," which is really funny.
So these here are ssk,
and these here are k2tog.
And so one way that you can remember how to do that
is make sure that that particular stitch is on the bottom.
So let's go with this one here.
I'm already worked my knitting up to this point.
And I wanna make these stitches here with this green band.
I wanna make these a left-leaning decrease
to kind of point to the middle.
So all I wanna do is take my right stitch
and place it on top of my left.
This left one remains the stitch on the bottom.
And so when I work this stitch or I knit it,
then it's going to face the right way;
it's going to directionally move that way
when I keep knitting, okay?
And then once we work that, as always,
we wanna move our stitches in.
Unless your pattern calls to add a yarn over,
you wanna move all these in.
Your yarn over can be either before or after that decrease,
but for this purpose we wanna only talk about decreases.
Let me work this middle stitch here,
and then I'll show you the knit two together.
We want it to lean to the right,
and so in this instance we're gonna take the left stitch,
where my orange rubber band is here,
pick it up,
and move it on top of the stitch here, on the right,
so that the right stitch of these two stitches
is on the bottom.
And then we're gonna knit that stitch, okay?
I can knit one at a time,
or both over at the same time, okay?
And now I have decreased.
And then we wanna move our stitches inward,
just like that.
Now, it's not always gonna be
in the center of our knitting, okay?
So just like this sample here, and on my loom,
I've got this right in the middle.
You could have a shawl that goes across the whole thing,
and I might have several of these with several decreases.
And you might in fact work in a yarn over,
or some other increase as well.
So you may have stitches going in like this,
and then having little holes.
So any time you have a decrease to the right or left,
this is what I want you to use.
All right, let's go to three stitches down to one.
This decrease sample is a little goofy, I know.
No one would ever knit anything like this.
But it represents a few things
that I want you to really pay attention to.
If you notice the one in the middle looks great,
everything is pointing to the middle,
you have this middle column of stitches,
and it just lines up really beautifully
going all the way down,
three stitches down to one,
and then you just loop through that final one,
you can just continue to go, go, go.
But on the left side over here,
you can see that it has these big areas,
they're not a yarn over,
but you can see a very clear stitch here.
If I was drawing them off
and making hash marks or something,
or ticks,
that's what I would call 'em,
a little tick mark or a hash mark or something.
It kind of looks like a whipstitch in sewing.
You can see that very clearly.
This one over here, you see the middle column,
but it leans over this way;
it's actually on the right side of this column, okay?
And then the one over here,
you can see, it looks the opposite.
Here's one of the stitches here,
and one here, and down here.
These are on the left side of this column,
and they make these long little hash marks,
or tick marks, okay?
So that's really the main difference between them.
So that middle central column isn't really fully seen, okay?
So you mainly see this little mark.
This one over here is the knit three together,
so it's that right leaning type of decrease.
I don't actually see it lean to the right or left,
if you notice these look almost symmetrical,
except you see these little hash marks
that fall on the right side of this column;
so that's how I remember
that if I wanted these little tick marks to appear,
I would make the k3tog, or knit three together.
The one on this side over here is the opposite.
They are on the left side of this column here.
So I remember that this one is the left-leaning,
just like the ssk, but it's the sssk,
or slip, slip, slip, knit.
And that's the only difference between these two.
So let's do those first,
and then I wanna show you the center double decrease,
the CDDs;
you get this really pretty central column.
All right, let's do that now.
We've got our knitting.
I've worked all the way up until the middle three stitches,
and I'm showing that marked with my band.
I wanna go ahead
and make sure that I'm keeping my three stitches down to one
right in the middle here,
so I want my rightmost stitch for the knit three together
to be in the middle, okay?
So I'm gonna pick up this second stitch,
and place my right stitch
and put it on that center peg, okay?
Whether you're working right to left,
it's the same thing.
So we want the rightmost stitch on that middle peg, okay?
Then we're gonna replace that stitch that was there
right back on it, okay?
And now take the left peg and put it in the middle.
And now these stitches can be all worked together.
And you can move the other stitches inward, okay?
Or that would be your opportunity for, say,
two yarn overs on either side,
if you're maintaining your stitch count.
Okay, so let's go ahead and move,
let's go ahead and knit these here.
And then we'll move in the stitches.
So if I was decreasing stitches
I would then move these in, okay?
So you just work all these stitches in,
and then move these over,
and knit them as well.
All right, let me go ahead and show you
the slip, slip, slip, knit.
The slip, slip, slip, knit, or sssk,
is going to have the left stitch in the very middle.
So we're gonna pick up that left stitch,
and pick up the middle stitch, or center stitch,
and move our left over.
And you can even slip it onto your loom hook,
and move it to the middle,
and then replace what was that middle, or center stitch,
put it right there,
and then move your right stitch on top.
So we're just stacking those up,
just like we did the other one,
and then knit all three of these stitches together.
And then you want to move your stitches in.
And, of course, if you have an increase,
or a yarn over,
that belongs on either side,
you can wrap the yarn over on here,
then knit the stitches,
and then wrap the next yarn over.
All right, let's move on to the center double decrease.
My absolute favorite is the CDD, or center double decrease,
sometimes called centered double decrease.
So let's do that one now.
You've worked up to your stitches,
and now all you do is leave the one
that's in the middle of the three that you've marked.
So I've got three here.
Leave that one exactly where it is.
And you're just gonna pick up the right stitch
and put it in the middle,
and pick up the left stitch and put it in the middle.
And you can just continue to do it the same way
for all of them.
It doesn't actually matter
if you put the left on the middle first or the right,
just do it consistently every time.
So if it's easier for you, if you're working left to right
to put the left on first, that's fine,
just make sure that you always have the middle stitch
on the very bottom.
And then, of course,
go ahead and knit those three stitches together.
And if it's a purl three center decrease,
then you can use a purl.
In any of these,
change it to a purl if it's called that way.
Let me show you with a yarn over like I was talking earlier.
So if I wanted to go ahead a knit this
and maintain my stitch count,
I can yarn over first as an E-wrap,
or I can hold the yarn in front,
and then knit these stitches one at a time
or all three together,
whatever works for you,
leaving only one stitch on the bottom.
Yarn over, and knit these next stitches, okay?
Make sure and give myself a little bit of tension here.
And then finish out my row.
And you can also have multiple decreases
that are centered throughout your pattern.
You can have several that knit three stitches down.
You will have to do a lot of moving
if you don't have any increases next to them.
Most of the time on a large project
you will have increases next to them,
and so that's why I wanted to show that to you.
I hope you enjoyed that tutorial,
and it clears up some information for you about decreases.
Please be sure and click down in the comments below
and let us know which is your favorite center decrease.
Do you have a favorite?
Do you have any other questions on decreases
that we can help you with? (upbeat music)
Thanks for joining us today,
where we help you stitch your love
and love your stitches.
See you again soon!