Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

Yesterday's post was about the holes in knitted lace. Today's post is about the partners of those holes  — decreases. If you just keep making yarn-overs in your work, the work will widen. If you want the fabric to stay the same width throughout, then the yarn-over holes/increases need to be balanced/offset with decreases. A "basic" lace pattern typically has the decreases and the yarn-overs on the same row. A really basic lace pattern has action only on right-side rows. Thus, the same number of stitches are on the needle at the end of every row, whether right-side or wrong-side. A more advanced lace pattern may have action on both right-side and wrong-side rows. Or it may have rows with non-balanced yarn-overs. Or it may have both. The decreases that balance the yarn-overs do not have to be on the same row with their yarn-overs. Many beautiful lace patterns with rippling or scalloped edges are created using this method. But, these patterns can be trickier to work be...