How to Do Decreases on the Waist of a Stranded Knit Sweater

Measure your waistline, your gauge and the number of stitches in your pattern to decrease it.

Stitching decreases into a waistline allows you to transform a boxy, shapeless sweater into a flattering top that curves along with your body. However, you must vary your decrease stitches and incorporate them gradually, as the type of stitch you use will dramatically affect the shape of your sweater. Stranded knit patterns, also called Fair Isle or jacquard patterns, use the same decrease stitches as other sweaters. However, they require a bit more work because you must pay attention to colors as well as shape.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure
• Two stitch markers or safety pins
• Circular or double-ended needles

Instructions

Pattern Alteration

1. Measure your chest and your waistline. Subtract your waist measurement from your chest measurement to determine how far you can take in the pattern.

2. Measure your sweater's gauge, or the number of stitches per inch. Hold a tape measure along a knit portion of your sweater and count how many stitches are in an inch of fabric. If the inch includes a partial stitch, count the number of stitches over 4 inches and divide the result by four. For instance, if you have 21 stitches in a 4-inch stretch of fabric, your gauge is 5.25.

3. Multiply your gauge by the number of inches you will take in the waist to determine how many stitches you need to decrease. If your gauge is five stitches per inch and you want to take in your sweater's waist by 2 inches, you will remove 10 stitches.

4. Review the pattern to determine how many stitches you need to knit each section. The number of stitches you remove must be divisible by the number of stitches in each section of the pattern. For instance, if your stranded sweater has a pattern of eight-stitch snowflakes, you cannot remove 18 stitches because the waistline of your sweater will have a partial snowflake on it. Instead, you would round the number of stitches down to 16 because that number is divisible by eight, allowing you to remove two snowflakes from the pattern.

5. Write down the number of times you will repeat the pattern when you have decreased the waist to the size you want. For instance, if the snowflake pattern calls for you to knit 23 snowflakes and you will remove two, you would write "21" to remind yourself of the new pattern size.

Knitting

1. Line up the stitches on your current row with the underarms of the sweater. Clip a stitch marker or safety pin to the current row directly below the underarms.

2. Knit the stitch below the first marker normally. Slip slip-knit the next two stitches together. To slip slip-knit, slip two stitches over to your right needle as if you were going to knit them. Insert the left needle through the front loops of the slipped stitches, then knit them together. If this would require you to knit together two stitches of different colors, wait until you reach a point where you would knit together two stitches of the same color so the stitch is uniform.

3. Knit according to the pattern until you reach the next stitch marker. Knit the next two stitches of the same color together by inserting your right needle into two stitches rather than one.

4. Repeat Steps 5 and 6 until you have decreased your pattern by the desired number of stitches. Continue knitting according to the altered pattern you have created.

Tips & Warnings

• If you round up the number of stitches you will remove, check to make sure you are not making your sweater's waist too small. While removing an extra two stitches from a small-gauge sweater will make little difference, removing an extra seven stitches in a large-gauge sweater may shrink the waistline by an additional inch or two and make it too tight. If that happens, round down instead of up.

References

• "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knitting and Crocheting"; Barbara Breiter et. al.; 2003.
• "Knitting Sweaters From the Top Down"; Cathy Carron; 2007
• "Fearless Fair Isle Knitting"; Kathleen Taylor; 2011