Waist Shaping - Part II
Decreases and increases, hook in hand
OK, so technical articles about how to do waist shaping (see Crochet me Issue 4) are all very fine, but how do you actually make those decreases and increases we're talking about?
Crochet books usually show how to decrease a stitch (working two together) and how to increase a stitch (working two stitches in the same stitch from the row below). But if you work your garment, or piece, or whatever, in a slightly more complicated stitch pattern, decreasing and increasing may require a little more attention.
Below is a discussion of decreases and increases in a couple of common stitch patterns. This is not an attempt to be exhaustive, nor to give you the impression that I’ve found The Truth about the subject. I just want to describe how I do it, and point out a couple of things to think about.
Before starting to try out decreases and increases, you naturally need to work a few rows in the stitch pattern so you get a "feel" for how it’s constructed.
Technical notes
US terminology is used in this article. Pattern instructions to be repeated are surrounded by *asterisks*.
Simple stitches
If your fabric is made of plain sc, hdc or dc, simple decreases and increases are the way to go. If you don’t know how to do this, you can easily find descriptions and tutorials in any crochet book, or search the Web.
At left is a swatch in sc worked in the front loop only (a stitch which currently rates very high on my personal Top Ten of Crochet Stitches):
If you make your decreases and increases with the right side of the fabric facing you, they are almost invisible.
If you make them with the wrong side of the fabric facing you, the increases will still hardly be noticeable. The decreases will form small "bumps" on the right side of the fabric.
Other stitch patterns
When you work in a stitch pattern which is formed by working different kinds of stitches, or one same stitch but worked otherwise than straight, simple rows of stitches, you have to think and experiment a bit.
A crucial notion here is what I mentally refer to as "a unit," which is commonly known as a "pattern repeat."
A simple example is the Granite stitch, which is also called Seed stitch. It’s worked as follows:
On any number of stitches, work *1 sc, ch 1, skip one stitch in the row below* until only one stitch on the row remains. This last stitch is a sc, no matter what, just as every row should start with a sc.
On following rows, work *1 sc in chain space, ch 1, skip the sc in the row below*. Remember to start and finish with a sc.
Here, the pattern repeat is 2 stitches, 1 sc and 1 ch. If you decrease only one stitch at a time, you disrupt the pattern repeat, and the stitch pattern doesn’t work anymore. So you need to decrease two stitches right beside one another, whenever you want to make a decrease.
Here is how I solved this problem: The last stitch before the decrease should be a sc (worked in a chain space). Work 2 sc together, one in the sc on the row below and one in the chain space. Repeat once. Then chain 1, and continue in established pattern.
To increase:
The last stitch before the increase should be a sc. Ch 1, work a sc in the sc below, ch 1, work a sc in the chain space.
Another common stitch pattern where the pattern repeat is a multiple of two is the V-stitch, pictured worked in dc.
The basic pattern:
Chain a multiple of 2 stitches (an even number). Ch 2 for the turning chain.
Row 1: 2 dc in the 4th ch from the hook *skip 1 ch, 2 dc in next chain*, repeat until 2 ch remain, skip 1 ch, 1 dc in last ch.
Row 2: Ch 3, *skip 2 stitches, 2 dc between 2nd skipped stitch and next stitch*, repeat until 1 dc and the turning chain remain, skip 1 stitch, 1 dc in top of turning chain.
The stitch pattern you obtain is made up of Vs (hence the name "V-stitch") with 2 dc in each. Every row starts and ends with a dc, or a turning chain of 3 ch instead of a dc.
The decrease will suppress one of these Vs. It is worked over two rows, as follows:
Row 1: Work only 1 dc in the V you want to suppress.
Row 2: Work 1 dc in the single dc in the row below together with the 1st dc in the following V. If you wish to make an increase leaning the other way (which can be very interesting for symmetry if you have 2 decreases in the same row), you work the 2nd dc in the V just before the single dc together with 1 dc in the single dc.
Row 3 and following rows are worked in the established stitch pattern. You can now blissfully ignore the single dcs – they have been "suppressed" in row 2.
Increasing means adding a V.
Row 1: Work 1 dc between two V:s.
Row 2: Work 2 dc in the single dc in the row below. There’s your new V!
Row 3 and following rows are worked in the established stitch pattern.
And now we finish off with something that turns out be a little more complicated: a solid shell stitch.
The basic pattern:
Chain a multiple of 6 (this is our pattern repeat: 5 dc + 1 sc) + 1. Chain 1 for the turning chain
Row 1: 1 sc in the 2nd ch from hook, *skip 2 ch, 5 dc in next ch, skip 2 ch, 1 sc in next chain* to end of row.
Row 2: Ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), 2 dc into first stitch, *skip 2 dc, 1 sc in next dc, skip 2 dc, 5 dc in next sc*. The last pattern repeat on the row ends with 3 dc in the last dc. Skip the turning chain.
Row 3: Ch 1, 1 sc in first stitch, *skip 2 dc, 5 dc in next sc, miss 2 dc, 1 sc in next dc*. The last pattern repeat on the row ends with 1 sc in the top of the turning chain.
Repeat rows 2 and 3.
Here we have quite a large pattern repeat to handle. Also, we have a pattern repeat which stacks up in a sort of diagonal grid which can (very) roughly be pictured like this:
My first try was to do the shaping inside the pattern, a bit like in the examples above. The pattern is really made up of shells worked on top of other shells. This is what I did:
Row 1: 3 dc in the two shells in the middle of the row.
Row 2: 3 dc in the three shells in the middle of the row.
Row 3: 3 dc in the four shells in the middle of the row.
Row 4: 3 dc in the five shells in the middle of the row.
Row 5: 3 dc in the four shells in the middle of the row.
Row 6: 3 dc in the three shells in the middle of the row.
Row 7: 3 dc in the two shells in the middle of the row.
This created a sort of diamond shape of decreases in the middle of the swatch:
The effect shows a bit better in this picture, where I hold up the swatch against my window:
If you study the shape of the entire swatch in the first picture, you can see that the shaping effect is not very strong. I had to block this swatch rather firmly before taking the photos. In it’s unblocked state it behaved rather weirdly, and curled quite a bit. I believe this is due to something that you can see more clearly in this picture:
When you work only 3 dcs in a shell instead of 5, they tend to try to spread out to fill the same space as the other shells. So they spread, and because of this they "shrink" heightwise. The fabric pulls in, not only horizontally, but also vertically. To some extent you can fix this with blocking – but then you also lose a lot of the shaping.
So what can you do?
I tried "shaping at the edge." I decided to decrease, then increase, half a shell at a time. In the swatch, I "suppressed" a whole shell over three rows. The last row before I started decreasing started and ended with half a shell (3 dc, see row 2 in the basic pattern above)
Row 1: Slip stitches in top of the dc:s and into the 1 st sc. Make half a shell (3 dc) and continue in established pattern. Work 3 dc in the last sc of the row.
Row 2: Work in established pattern.
Row 3: Slip stitches in sc and the 2 following dc:s. Ch 1 (a sort of turning chain), sc in next dc. Continue in established pattern. At the end of the row, work 1 sc in the 3 rd dc in the last complete shell in the row below.
A pattern repeat has been suppressed at each border.
And so the increases:
Row 1: Ch 3 (= 1 dc), 4 dc in the sc in the row below. Continue in established pattern. End row with a complete shell (5 dc) in the last sc.
Row 2: Ch 3 (= 1 dc), 2 dc in the first stitch (a dc). Continue in established pattern. End row with 3 dc in top of the turning chain.
Row 3: Work in established pattern.
Here’s the result:
Ahem. The decreases are, shall we say, a little jagged. The increases look much nicer.
This happens, of course, because the shell in itself is not symmetrical. It starts with straight diagonals upwards and outwards, and then the top is rounded.
Now, this doesn’t have to be a big problem. All this can be hidden in a seam – especially since this method gives a rather strong shaping, which may need to be evened out a bit, with a seam which doesn’t follow the border exactly. I’m thinking about something like a seam along the lines added in this picture:
But this "problem" sparked another design idea. What if we don’t do any decreases, since we find them unsightly? What if we only do increases, since they look nicer?
I imagined a waist shaping where you start working at the narrowest part of the waist and continue upwards. Then, you go back, and work from the waist downwards. The swatch turned out this way:
Are you disturbed by the holes that form at the base chain? Not me. Especially since this would be at the most narrow part of the waist. You could thread a cord through these holes, made from the same yarn or a different one. You can use ribbons, in matching or contrasting colours, perhaps braided. If you hate the holes you can stitch them together from the back side, or hide them buy sewing beautiful buttons over them.
So, playing around with increases and decreases is a great way to give better shape and fit to your garment – but it can also open up design perspectives that you had no idea of when you started! Why don’t you start playing around, too?!
