in this video in the Math for Knitters series,
we're going to talk about increasing or decreasing
evenly across a row.
and you'll run into this in patterns, you'll
be knitting along and the pattern will say,
"decrease 12 times evenly across the row".
now, as a pattern designer, i think that's
kind of a cop out [laughs]
i always describe in my patterns exactly where
to decrease.
i don't like having to pull out a calculator
when i'm working on a math pattern, uh, knitting
pattern.
it shouldn't be a math pattern, too!
so, you'll see that in patterns, you'll especially
see it in older patterns
or in really advanced patterns where the designer
just sort of expects you to figure this out.
i'm going to break this down into the easiest
way to get you to your answer for this.
if you need to increase or decrease evenly
across a row or round, and there's a pattern,
a stitch pattern in the knitting
you're going to need to modify this a little
bit.
if you need to decrease evenly across 2 by
2 rib or something, you're going to want to
make sure that you're decreasing so that the
rib stays nice looking.
but for the most part when a pattern tells
you to do this, they are usually just having
you decrease a little bit before something
else.
so exactly where the stitches end up isn't
going to be visually important to the rest
of the pattern.
specifically, one place that you'll often
see "decrease evenly across the row" will
be on a sweater that is knit etiher in the
round or in pieces.
knitting top down, right before you get to
the bottom cuff of the sweater, there's usually
a decrease round
to get the stitch count to the correct number
it needs to be for the ribbing at the bottom
of the sweater.
also just to decrease it down so that when
you do knit the ribbing at the bottom of the
sweater, there's a little more fit to it.
and the sweater isn't baggy at the bottom.
okay, that said, let's go ahead and take a
look at the math involved.
in this case, we're going to set the number
of stitches we have at 200
and the number to decrease at 12.
first thing we do is to divide 200 by 12.
so you'll take this total stitch count, and
divide it by the number to decrease.
and we get kind of a messy number there.
but it does tell us that we'll decrease once
about ever 16 stitches.
and in this case, we're assuming that it's
going to be decreasing in stockinette,
so we want to get the decreases even enough.
it doesn't have to be completely perfect,
because it's not going to show in the work.
so then we're going to work backwards.
to be able to write out the exact row that
we need to knit.
200 divided by 12 is 16.67.
so we're goign to try to get a little closer
than that.
12 times 16, the number we have to decrease
by the solution to the last problem is 192.
remember, our complete stitch count is 200.
from this, we know that 12 goes into 200 16
times, with a remainder of 8.
okay, because 200 minus 192 is 8.
so we'll decrease every 16 stitches, then
work the last 8 stitches in established pattern.
which is probably just stockinette.
something important to remember, a decrease
requires two stitches.
k2tog or ssk, if it's a one stitch decrease
it requires two stitches.
so you have to think about the solution we
came up with, and how you're going to work
that row.
to decrease once every 16 stitches, think
of it like this,
knit 14, knit two together, repeat that all
the way across the row to the last 8 stitches,
because remember we had a remainder of 8,
and knit to end.
if you're working an increase, if you're working
increases evenly a row, it can work just like
this, or it can be a little bit different.
because increases either use one stitch, or
zero stitches.
a kfb, a knit front back, actually uses a
stitch for the increase.
so in this case, you'll actually knit 15,
kfb, knit 15, kfb to work the solution the
way that i did here.
if you're using an increase that doesn't use
a stitch, like a make 1 stitch or a knit one
below, make 1 below, then it will be knit
16, increase, knit 16, increase.
okay, i think that is all i have to share
with you.
i hope that helps!
good luck.
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