Decreasing in Single Crochet
When you see the instructions to “decrease in single crochet” and the instructions to “single crochet two together” (sc2tog), what you are seeing is the same thing. Joining two single crochet stitches together at the top to make it become one stitch is the way that you decrease in single crochet. Of course, you might also see the instruction to sc2tog when your design has a two-stitch single crochet cluster as a texture feature but this is uncommon, and in either case, the way that you work it is the same as if you are decreasing in crochet. This tutorial teaches you step-by-step on how to decrease in single crochet.
Sc2Tog as an Abbreviation
Sc2tog is the common crochet abbreviation for the stitch that you are learning here, but different designers use different terms so be sure to look at each pattern carefully to make sure that you are following their instructions correctly. For example, you may see it as dec sc or sc dec (for decreasing in single crochet). Understanding what this is all about will give you a sense of decreasing in crochet regardless of the stitches that you are using. In other words, it helps you understand crochet decreases for double crochet, treble crochet, and other stitches. Every time that you decrease, you will be creating a cluster of two stitches by starting the first stitch, leaving it unfinished before starting the second stitch and then finishing both stitches together. Those stitches are named similarly (dc2tog, for example, when decreasing double crochet stitches), reflecting that what you are doing with a decrease is stitching two of the same stitches together. Tip: If you haven’t learned to single crochet, learn that first then come back and learn how to sc2tog. However, this is where things are about to change from sc to a sc2tog. You are not going to finish the first single crochet at this time. You are going to move on to making the next single crochet instead. There are already two loops on your hook; just leave them exactly where they are and keep on working. (If this were regular single crochet, you would yarn over and pull through both loops; you’ll complete this part later.) Note that if this were one single crochet stitch, there would be two loops on the hook, you would pull through both of them and it would be a finished single crochet stitch. Since you are working two of them together, there are three loops on the hook instead, and you are pulling through all three of them to close the stitch. You have now united those two single crochet stitches into one stitch—sc2tog! That’s it; that is all there is to the process of decreasing in crochet. Once you have learned how to single crochet and then how to decrease in single crochet, you can make almost any item that you want to in crochet.
