9/26/2010

Short & Sweet Invisible Decrease Tutorial

The invisible decrease is one of the most useful stitches in amigurumi crochet. You can, of course, make a typical decrease if you prefer. But, if you use an invisible decrease, you'll avoid having yucky lumps and gaps  in your work.

There are two key pieces to making a decrease invisible.
  • Number one -- instead of working in both loops of the stitches from the previous round -- you work in just the front loops.
  • Number two -- You do not yarn over (YO) before picking up the first and second loops.
Let's have a look at your project. The back loops of your stitches are the ones facing the inside of your owl (where the stuffing will be). The front loops are on the outside.


To begin an invisible decrease, poke your hook through the front loop of the first stitch you're decreasing.


Then, without doing a yarn over, poke your hook through the front loop of the second stitch you're decreasing.


Now, you can yarn over and pull through all three loops on your hook. Can you spot the decrease in the round I just finished below? Me neither!

9 comments:

  1. Thank you for this! My decreases always come out a bit funny, so I'll have to try this version.

    I love your Frankenpumpkin, but especially the ghost! His arms are so cute!

    dancingspatulawand.blogspot.com

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  2. Thanks i was just about to get to this part. I watched the video to see what the difference was. I just wanna make sure i got this right. With a normal decrease you go through both the front and the back. With the invisible one you only go through the front and you do that to the other stitch too. Then u lost me. I'm not sure what yarn over means....

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  3. @Emily - Yarn over just means "use the hook to pick up the yarn that comes from your ball or skein." It is how you add new yarn to your project from your working stash. The term is often used in crochet patterns and abbreviated as YO.

    ...and you're *almost* right on the difference between the regular and invisible crochet decrease...

    -- In the regular, you go through the front *and* back loops of the first stitch, yarn over, and come back out. Then you repeat the process for the second stitch you want to decrease on. You then yarn over a third time to draw through all the loops on the hook and turn them into a single stitch.

    -- In the invisible, you do not yarn over until you are ready to draw through all the loops on the hook. as a result, you're adding way way less new yarn to the project and you don't end up with a bulge.

    Hope that helps!!

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  4. Can't wait to try this. It should work on things other than amigurami, right?!?!

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  5. Kristine -- you can use it on any crochet project made in the round pretty easily. It's a little more difficult to use on projects that go in rows, but I have used it there too!

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  6. THANK YOU! I have been wondering if there was another way to do it and this looks so much better!!

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  7. Got it! Thank you! you helped so much!

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