Stitch Maps » Left leaning decrease techniques

Left leaning decrease techniques

This swatch (see photo) contrasts four methods of doing a left leaning decrease in order to see which of them creates the cleanest diagonal line. Unfortunately the different methods cannot all be distinguished in the Stitch Map.

From right to left the methods used are:

slip1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over (the standard method some years ago)
ssk (as devised by Barbara Walker and which seems to be the standard now)
k2tog tbl (as suggested wrongly by Dorothy Reade …

From right to left the methods used are:

slip1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over (the standard method some years ago)
ssk (as devised by Barbara Walker and which seems to be the standard now)
k2tog tbl (as suggested wrongly by Dorothy Reade to be the mirror of k2tog)
slip1 knitwise and return to left needle, then k2tog tbl, which is actually knitting together through the original front of first stitch and the back of second stitch (my unvention).

Methods 1 and 2 are topologically identical.

Conclusion: None of them is great, but I'd say that (at least with my knitting style and this weight of yarn) ssk and my method (4) give the best results. From now on I will perhaps use my method, which I find easier to do than ssk.

Other people have covered this in more depth than me, for example here and here.

Stitch map