crafts & knitting – little cotton rabbits

November has brought some proper English rain: days of constant, steady rainfall from deep grey clouds that form a dense blanket across the sky, reducing the daylight to a semi dark twilight. Murky, miserable, gloomy, overcast, dim are all words that we use for weather like this, and the Scots have their own wonderful word for this kind of weather: dreich

On days like this I marvel at the amount of water that is held aloft in clouds, it can rain non stop for days, causing flooding down here on the land, and yet the density of the cloud above seems to remain constant. It’s estimated that an average cumulus cloud weighs around 500,000 kg and at any one time there is six times more water held in clouds in the atmosphere around the globe than in all of the world’s rivers combined. As I cloud watch on our walks I often think about the constant cycle of water across the planet: from a vaporous state in clouds, to a liquid state in oceans and rivers, and a solid state in the frozen cold places of the world. Of all of the known elements, water is unique because it is the only natural substance that exists in all three states under normal Earth conditions. Isn’t that something marvelous to ponder on cold and wet November day?

Most of our walks take in some form of water, there are the narrow brooks that criss-cross the woodlands, the chalk streams and rivers that flow alongside Waterford Marsh and through Panshanger, the shallow pools left from second world war bombings at Balls Wood and the deep gravel pit extraction lakes at Panshanger, now home to such an amazing array of wildlife.

All summer long the pebbles that line the woodland brooks were baked dry, but now they are once again submerged under a few inches of languid water. The stream strength is not yet enough to wash away the fallen autumn leaves that float on the surface but now the ground is fully saturated one more winter storm will swell the gentle trickle to a rushing, babbling flow. And we no longer crunch our way through the fallen leaves, their dry crackle has been dulled by dampness and underfoot the squelch of mud has replaced the baked earth of summer.

Back home inside is warm and cosy and there is some quiet calm, some gentle-paced sock knitting, and a little tentative pattern writing. I hope to pop back very soon with an updated version of my free knitted holly pattern. It was first written and shared in November 2007 and I have learnt a lot more about knitting since then so have re-written it with different increases methods. I just have to knit a few more samples and photograph them so will share a free PDF file in my next post.

‘Til then I hope life is treating you kindly and you are finding enjoyable moments in your days, see you soon, J x

This post details the decrease methods most used in my range of Little Cotton Rabbits patterns, with pictures for each method and details of their specific characteristics so that they can be compared and contrasted. I’ve also put together a PDF file that you can download to keep or print out if preferred: Download PDF file

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A comparison of decreases:

This table compares four paired and mirrored decreases, these are the decreases that I use most often in my patterns.
As you can see they are grouped vertically according to the direction in which the decrease stitch leans (either to the left or to the right) and also grouped horizontally as matched symmetrical pairs which mirror each other.

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Double decreases:

CDD: centred double decrease:

This is a lovely decrease that removes 2 stitches from the work at the same time. As its name suggests, it is centred and therefore symmetrical. I use it a lot because it is so neat and attractive.

The most important thing to remember is to begin by slipping the two stitches TOGETHER and NOT one at a time. This twists them and changes their order and is vital to creating the neat and symmetrical finish.

Method:
Slip 2 stitches together as if to Knit them,
Knit the next stitch,
and then pass the 2 slipped stitches over it and off the needle.

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Right Leaning decreases:

K2tog: Knit two together:

This is a simple method for decreasing a single stitch on the right (front) side of the work, and is probably the best known method of decreasing by one stitch.

Because the left stitch crosses in front of the right stitch this creates a decrease that leans towards the right.

Method: Knit two stitches together at the same time, in exactly the same way that you would Knit a single stitch.

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P2TOG: Purl two together:

This creates a right leaning decrease, identical to K2tog above, but is worked on the wrong (reverse) side of the work.

Method: Purl two stitches together at the same time, in exactly the same way that you would Purl a single stitch.

I prefer to work decreases on the right (front) side of the work so don’t often use this decrease, unless it is part of a decorative stitch pattern. But I do use it when extra decreases need to be made that could not comfortably be fitted in on the previous right side row.

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Left Leaning decreases:

P2tog tbl: purl two together through the back loops:

This stitch creates a left leaning decrease, identical to SSK below, but is worked on the wrong (reverse) side.

Method: Purl 2 stitches together through the back loops.

This is done in order to twist the stitches and swap their positions, so that from the front of the work the right stitch crosses in front of the left stitch, creating a decrease that leans towards the left. This can be a little tricky to work, so it helps to have needles with pointy tips.

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SSK: Slip, slip, knit:

This is a simple method for decreasing a single stitch on the right (front) side of the work. Because the right stitch crosses in front of the left stitch this creates a decrease that leans towards the left.

Please note: It is important to slip each stitch individually from the left to the right needle in Step 1 below, and to slip both stitches together at the same time from the right needle back to the left needle in Step 2.

Method:
Step 1: Slip a stitch (as if to Knit it) to the right-hand needle, slip a second stitch in the same way

Step 2: Slip both stitches together back to the left-hand needle and Knit them together through their back loops.

There is however a problem with this decrease stitch which occurs when it is used in a stacked way over several alternate rows. And that is because the SSK decrease goes against the natural direction of regular Knit and Purl knitting stitches. The SSK decrease stitch leans to the left and yet on the following row when you work a normal Purl stitch above the decrease this naturally leans to the right.

The result of this is a stepped line of decreases in the work, like a zig-zag pattern, and the finished result is not particularly neat (see the green sample below).

So, in order to smooth the step-like appearance we can use a little trick. There are several different ways of doing this, if you’d like to explore that further then please google ‘smooth SSK knitting’ or ‘neater SSK knitting’ and this will bring up a host of video tutorials and you can compare and decide which is your favourite method, my favourite is below.

My preferred method is to work the SSK decrease exactly as described at the top of the page. And then, on the following wrong side row, Purl the single stitch above it through the back loop (PTBL).

This twists the stitch that is above the decrease slightly, making it change direction so that it lies a little flatter, and creates a much smoother line of decreases (see the blue sample above):

This method of smoothing the stacked line of decreases comes in very handy in a couple of my patterns: especially the nose of the foxes, the bib of the dungarees, the armholes of the cable panelled sweaters. But to be honest, for the sake of neatness, I always PTBL the stitch above any SSK decreases.

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