new toe decrease

I had promised Angeluna to blog this new variation on my toe decrease and neglected to do so. Sorry Angeluna . This is a variation on the double decrease I described a few days ago. I've added a yo to help prevent holes.

Place markers at the points where the decreases should happen. For example, if you have 60 stitches, knit 30, pm, knit 30, pm. The markers are at the side points of the toes. If you have an odd number of stitches, decrease somewhere, or just don't worry about it. Two stitches before the marker, yo and k2tog. Remove the marker and slip the resultant stitch from the k2tog to the left needle and k2tog through the back loop. pm and knit to the next marker, well, two stitches before, and repeat the double decrease. That is, yo and k2tog. Remove the marker and slip the resultant stitch from the k2tog to the left needle and k2tog through the back loop. pm . Knit a plain row. On the plain row, twist the yo (slip it knitwise twice) and knit it together with the following stitch. Then another decrease row, and another plain row. And so on.

Now at some point, you may want to skip the plain rows and do all decrease rows to make a rounder toe. Do this based on how fast your toe is closing in on where you want to be done. Approximately, I do this when about half of my decreases are done. For example, if I started with 60 stitches, and planned to have 10 left on each needle to kitchener, that is 20 stitches to be left at the end. So half of the decreases are done when I have 40 stitches on the needles. Actually, I would probably go to 36 in this example. Whatever you do, make note of it so you can do the second sock the same way.

This is the same decrease I use for afterthought heels.

Now if you are using magic loop or two circs, and your break point between needles is at the side points you're going to have to do some stitch shifting as it would be very difficult (I'm guessing next to impossible) to have the double decrease cross over between needles. When I'm doing toes or heels, I always switch over to dpns, but that's just me and the way I do it.

more later,
j