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Tunisian crochet tutorial – Decrease

Have you mastered the Tunisian Rib Stitch? There are two ways of decreasing Rib Stitches – both of them will result in a slant in a different direction. In this tutorial, you will see how you can decrease a Rib Stitch in your fabric to slant away from your crocheting hand (slant left for right handed crocheters and slant right for left handed crocheters). You can find the other one here. While I have demonstrated this technique using the Rib Stitch, it can be used to decrease Tunisian Simple Stitches as well.

Here is the front and back of a swatch that shows the decrease of one Rib Stitch using this technique.

The hook

There are a bunch of different Tunisian crochet hooks available for purchase. You can read about the hooks I use here. Because of the nature of Tunisian crochet stitches, I recommend using a hook that is at least 2 sizes larger than the recommended hook on the yarn.

Video Tutorials

I have right and left handed video tutorials on my Youtube channel. You can find all my Tunisian crochet video tutorials here.

Right handed

Left handed

Photo Tutorial

Decreasing a Rib Stitch is actually decreasing two stitches and you will see that happen over two rows in this tutorial – one stitch will be decreased in each of those rows.

Forward pass (Row 1)

Step 1: Make Rib Stitches all the way to the point where you would like to decrease a stitch.

Step 2: Locate the vertical bars of the next two stitches (marked in the pictures below with a pin). Insert your hook into both those vertical bars, yarn over and pull through both vertical bars on the hook – this is the first decrease.

Step 3: Make a Rib Stitch as you would have without the decrease and continue all the way to the end of the row. The last stitch is made differently. Find the two vertical bars of the last stitch: the ones in the front and the back. Insert hook into both those bars, yarn over and pull through both of the vertical bars on the hook. You can see a detailed explanation of this step in the Tunisian Simple Stitch tutorial.

Reverse pass (Row 1)

This is the same as the reverse pass in the Foundation Row.

Forward pass (Row 2)

Step 1: Make Rib Stitches all the way to the point of decrease in the previous row.

Step 2: Repeat Step 2 from the previous row – locate the vertical bars of the next two stitches (marked in the pictures below with a pin). Insert your hook into both those vertical bars, yarn over and pull through both vertical bars on the hook – this is the second decrease.

Step 3: Make a Twisted Tunisian Simple Stitch in the next stitch.

Step 4: Make a Rib Stitch as you would have without the decrease and continue all the way to the end of the row. The last stitch is made differently. Find the two vertical bars of the last stitch: the ones in the front and the back. Insert hook into both those bars, yarn over and pull through both of the vertical bars on the hook. You can see a detailed explanation of this step in the Tunisian Simple Stitch tutorial.

Reverse Pass (Row 2)

This is the same as the reverse pass in the Foundation Row.

I made a few more rows (without any decrease) and you can clearly see a Rib Stitch decrease in the swatch.

Pin it!

More Tunisian Crochet tutorials:

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