Tuesday Learn to Knit Day 9 - Two Simple Decreases

So by now I'm sure you'd all like to move on from rectangles and squares and maybe do a hat or something with shape! That's why this week I am going to teach you the two simplest decrease methods that are very widely used. I use them in most of my hats, sweaters, socks, etc etc, the list goes on.

Ok the first one I am going to teach you is the Knit 2 Together (K2tog) method.

Basically, it is what it sounds like. You knit to where you'd like to decrease, then insert your right hand needle into both of the next two stitches on the left hand needle as if to knit.

You then complete the stitch as one normal knit stitch. You wrap the yarn around the right hand needle from right to left, back to front, and slip the two old stitches off the left hand needle leaving only your new single stitch on the right hand needle.

Pretty simple no?

The next decrease method is fairly similar in appearance although the "direction" of the decrease goes to the right instead of the left, this will be more obvious once you've seen them both.

Again, knit to where you'd like to decrease, slip the next stitch off the left hand needle onto the right hand needle without knitting it (sl1).

Knit the next stitch on the left hand needle.

Now take the slipped stitch and pass it over the knitted stitch and off the right hand needle (Psso)

What do you think? Which is your preferred method of decreasing?

Tuesday Learn to Knit Day 6 - A Simple Lace Pattern

For this week I am teaching you a simple lacy looking pattern that is great for scarves :)

I hope you found some gorgeous, soft yarn that you are looking forward to using because this is our first apparel project!

Ok, here we go. Cast on an odd number of stitches in the width that you want your scarf to be (usually somewhere around 21 stitches if you're still using the needles we used for the washcloths). Cast on more for a thicker scarf and less for a thinner scarf.

Knit the first row as I taught you in this post.

The first stitch of the next row: Insert your right hand needle through the stitch as if to knit but don't wrap and simply slip off the left hand needle onto the rhn (right hand needle) leaving the yarn behind the work. This is called Slipping the Stitch Knitwise or sl or sl st.

Before the next stitch, wrap the yarn around the rhn from back to the left around the front and to the back again as if you are wrapping it around the needle on a knit stitch. This is called a Yarn Over or YO.

Now, insert your rhn into the next TWO stitches on the lhn knitwise. As in, take the right hand needle and insert it through the second stitch as if to knit and then through the first st as if to knit so that you have both sts. Wrap the yarn around the rhn and remove the sts as if you were simply knitting one. this is called Knitting Two Together or K2tog.

For the remainder of the sts on the lhn, continue to YO then K2tog across.

At the beginning for each row, sl the first st knitwise and YO, K2tog to the end :)

When the scarf is the desired length, knit one more row then bind off as shown in this post.

I can't wait to see what you all make!