Learn to read CDDs and kiss your stitch markers goodbye!

I really love the stacked look of the centered double decrease (CDD), and when working crown decreases on a hat, I also like being able to combine the typical 2 decrease motions (k2tog and SSK usually) into 1 movement.

First, a refresher. The CDD is worked like so:

Slip next 2 sts together knit-wise. Knit 1. Pass 2 slipped sts over this stitch.

However, the nature of how CDDs are constructed means that, when you’ve placed markers indicating where the decrease should be worked, you can’t simply say “knit to 3 before marker, CDD, repeat,” as this would result in a weird diagonal. You have to place the stitch marker in the middle of the stitches that will be worked in the CDD. With a stitch marker involved, the CDD instructions would be more like:

Knit to 2 before marker. Slip next 2 sts together knit-wise. Remove marker. Knit 1. Pass 2 slipped sts over this stitch. Replace marker.

Kind of fiddly!

By learning to read the CDD stitch in your knitting, you can avoid the need for placing markers entirely, and live dangerously! This is how I knit the crown on my Little Bits Beanie, and I hope it helps you knit yours too.

Let’s look at some photos to get a sense of what’s happening. Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid the set-up round and the initial placing of markers to mark the sections of the crown of the hat, so you have to work that round. Here we are on the next round, knitting to 2 stitches before the marker. Keep in mind that the stitch just before the marker will always be the center stitch of the CDD.

Knit to 2 stitches before marker

Slip the next 2 sts knit-wise:

Slip the next 2 sts knit-wise

Remove marker and knit 1:

Remove marker and knit 1

Pass 2 stitches over the just-knit stitch and replace marker after the CDD:

Pass 2 stitches over the just-knit stitch and replace marker after the CDD

In the early stages of crown decreases, you’ll likely have a rest row in between decrease rows. So, here we come back to the CDD, having worked the rest row. We’re ready to work another decrease, so we stop 2 stitches before the marker again.

Ready to work CDD the second time

Let’s take a look at it without the marker:

2 stitches before the marker, but there’s no marker!

You can hopefully see the CDD stitch, which stands up above the surrounding stitches because it’s got 3 stitches all stacked on each other underneath. This column of stitches will always be the center of the 3 stitches involved in the CDD. Thus, if basing your counting off of this visual, you’d stop when you have 1 stitch + this CDD stitch, then begin the “slip 2 together knit-wise.”

The center stitch of the CDD is marked with an arrow, and the neighboring 2 stitches that will be decreased are marked with light blue lines. The yellow line is where the marker would be.

Here’s what it looks like once you have a stack of CDDs, including a few nearby as they slowly converge at the crown of the hat. Remember where the stitch markers are supposed to be with regard to the CDD stitch? Can you tell how many stitches there are “between markers”?

A stack of CDDs in the center with two CDDs converging on it to the right and left.

Here’s the same image, but with guidelines. The blue arrows indicate the 3 stacks of CDDs. The yellow lines indicate where the stitch markers would be. The blue dots show that there are three stitches between markers at this point. When counting stitches, count the stitches between the CDDs and include ONE of the CDDs in the count. In the case of the Little Bits Beanie, the CDD is at the end of each section, so you’d count from the BOR marker to the first CDD - that’s one section. Then, count from the stitch just after this first CDD to the next CDD, and so on, to ensure all sections have the same number of stitches.

Hopefully this helps you ditch the stitch markers and work CDDs with reckless abandon! If you have any questions, or anything is unclear, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Do swatches lie, or are they just telling an incomplete truth?

Swatches are supposed to help knitters identify their gauge with various yarn and needle combos and use that to create a finished object in the size they’re expecting. But, too often knitters complain that their swatch lied, as their WIP is working up to be too large or small. What’s the point of making a swatch if it will only let you down?

Much swatching advice has to do with the time of day, mental state, and knitting conditions. For example, if you typically do your knitting after dinner, beverage of choice in hand, while watching Netflix, so should you knit your swatch. And there’s the magical technique that allows you to swatch in the round without knitting an actual tube, which lets you avoid gauge differences in your knit vs purl rows when knitting flat.

But there are so many other factors besides these! Some of them require a certain amount of experience and experimenting with a variety of different types of projects, so the more types of projects you try out, the more data you can collect about how you personally knit. From here on out, I’ll be sharing some personal examples I’ve discovered while knitting a variety of different objects, which will hopefully help you identify your own gauge quirks even if the examples don’t exactly match your situation.

A big factor I’ve noticed causes major changes in gauge is the width of the project round or row. For example, for me, a stockinette hat knit on 16” circulars with US 7s will come out with a tighter gauge than a 300-stitch stockinette sweater body on a 32” circ with US 7s. Something about those hundreds of stitches just makes me relax! Taking that same sweater, when I move to the sleeves I have one of two things occur: I use magic loop, in which case my gauge is way tighter than the body, or I use a 12” circ and my gauge is only a little tighter than the body. If I knit the sweater in pieces (front and back), then seamed it, the lower stitch count (and needing to knit and purl to maintain stockinette) would result in a tighter gauge, so I might not need to size down a needle. What this has taught me is that in order to keep a consistent gauge across a project’s different elements, I need to use either smaller or larger needles depending on what part of the sweater I’m knitting. This is usually the case with ribbing vs not-ribbing, but for me it applies to parts beyond that.

And that’s just talking stockinette! Now let’s consider the different types of stitch patterns - ribbing, cables, lace and the like. Alternating knits and purls make me tighten up, so I rarely need to go down a needle size for the ribbing on a sweater or hat. The same goes for cables - being slowed down by the stitch pattern keeps my gauge from loosening up too much, so it’s less likely that I need to size down a needle.

Are you knitting two matching objects, one after the other, like socks or sleeves? If you’re like me, your gauge may loosen up on the second one as you get familiar with the pattern. If possible, you can mitigate this by knitting two-at-a-time, and if not, keep this in mind as you knit the second object, checking your gauge to make sure it isn’t too different, or consider using a different needle size.

Next, consider the type of needles you’re using. If you have a variety of types (circs vs straight needles, wood vs metal, or even 2 different brands of the same type of needle), differences in those might get you different gauge results. For example, I get a much tighter gauge on metal needles than the same size needle in wood or bamboo. If my swatch on a wooden needle just about got me gauge, I might knit the object with metal needles of the same size instead to help tighten up that last little bit. Or, I have bamboo needles with very long tapers, meaning I have to push the stitch far back onto the right needle for it to be the right size. Since I knit very close to the tips of my needles, using the bamboo tips can result in smaller stitches and change my stitch or row gauge. Knitting with massive needles and bulky yarn, I always get a snug gauge because I have to slow down or risk letting stitches slip off the needles!

Finally, let’s talk a little bit about the yarn you’ve chosen for the pattern. If you’re like me, you rarely use the exact yarn the designer used in the original pattern. But going with a different type or blend of fiber can affect your gauge too! The experience that really drove this home for me was knitting socks. My standard recipe is always: a 64 stitch sock on my trusty metal 0s...until that doesn’t work. I had been using extremely soft and squishy merino for most of my socks, so I could get a nice bulletproof fabric with this stitch/needle combo. Enter Knit Picks Hawthorne, which is a DENSE sock yarn that doesn’t squish down easily. Knitting it on 0s was awful, and once I sized up to a more appropriate needle, 64 stitches would no longer work or I’d end up with socks too large for me.

At this point, you may be ready to give up - with so many factors to take into account how could anyone possibly be able to knit anything that fits? Start with what you have - what projects have you completed that ended up with a different gauge or fit than you were expecting? Go and re-measure your gauge on those, and on projects that turned out perfectly. See if you got a different gauge on the sweater body, collar, or sleeve, and compare that to the stated gauge of the pattern (or the gauge you were aiming for, if different). Compare paired objects like socks and sleeves to each other - are they different gauges? Take stock of your available needles - if you have multiple options available, what are your preferred needles/cables for what types of projects? What kind of gauge can you expect with that combo?