Sunday, February 04, 2007

Misbegotten-Devil-Stitch Almost-Non-Slanting Single Decrease

So today I am occasionally (ha) taking breaks from my evil useless thesis by knitting a hat for a friend. Well, it's not for him anymore, because I think it will end up being small-child sized. So it's practice. Anywho, it's mostly like this Olive Cable-Knit Hat but of course I got obsessive and decided that when it came time to the decrease section where you drop from a k2 rib to a k1 rib, I wanted a non-slanting decrease. But I couldn't find any non-slanting single decreases, so I wasted plenty of time figuring this out -- what I call the Misbegotten-Devil-Stitch Almost-Non-Slanting Single Decrease. I'm sure someone else has already figured it out, or more likely, something much better, but I'm writing it here so I don't forget it, at least until I find the better way that someone else figured out!

So I worked until I arrived at the two stitches that I wished to become one -- that is, the future single decrease. I then temporarily slipped the first of those stitches to the R needle. Then I created the Misbegotten Devil Stitch simply by lifting the bar to the right of the next stitch (which was between the two that were destined to become one), and placed it onto the left needle (either way, front to back or back to front -- one ends up making a little bit of a hole, the other looks a little odd in its own way, and I can't remember which is which). Then I returned the temporarily slipped stitch from the right needle back to the left. Now everything was basically set up to do a non-slanting pretty center stitch double decrease by slipping two sts knitwise at once, then knitting one, then passing the two slipped stitches over. Depending on how tightly you knit and all, the slipping and the passing can be painful. But anyway, you more or less seem to get a non-slanting single decrease out of it all. Or then again, maybe in a few rows I'll notice that it makes my whole hat self-destruct. I'll let you know later. After thesis of useless PITA doom is done. With pictures. (Of the hat, not the thesis of crap).

And, in slightly shorter steps so I never have to read that babble again (I'm sorry if you did):
Step 1) work your pattern until the 2 sts you wish to make into 1.
Step 2) sl 1 st pwise (temporarily, so it doesn't really matter where you hold the yarn, just don't end up wrapping it around like a crazy person)
Step 3)
as though you were going to M1 (but without the knitting part!), insert L ndl through horizontal strand between the two stitches destined to become one (that is, between the one on the right ndl and the one on the left).
Step 4)
return, via slipping, the temporarily slipped st on the R ndl back to the L ndl
Step 5)
Now embark on somewhat standard non-slanting double decrease: sl2tog kwise, k1, p2sso.

Depending on which way you inserted the left needle to make the Misbegotten Devil Stitch, you may have a slight hole beneath your new, relatively non-slanting single stitch, or it may just look a little funky. I forgot which does which. I have now decided that the one with the small hole looks a little better -- more symmetric -- but I imagine that a larger hole could be undesirable, so if you knit loosely it could look untoward.... And I still can't remember which way to put the left needle in. I think it might be front to back. I'll let you know if I ever get around to doing it again! (As for who "you" are, I don't know -- I'm pretty sure no one reads this but me!)

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