Gismonda Tutorial: 4 st Decrease

I found myself in possession of a tripod this weekend, and various other tools that allowed me to finally fulfill my commitment to immortalizing this stitch (for Gismonda) in pictures. Kristen has very, very patiently waited for this, so I hope you find it useful, Kristen!

This stitch is a series of passing knit stitches over each other, then decreasing the final resulting knit stitch into the preceding purl stitch to make the results virtually invisible (at least, as invisible as you can get).

You start with 1 purl st and the 4 knit stitches you're going to decrease on your left-hand needle. The yarn is to the back of the work.

Slip the next 2 sts (the purl st and the first knit st) purl-wise, keeping the yarn at the back.

Then, you use the tip of the right-hand needle to slip the second st on the left-hand needle...

...over the first st on the left-hand needle. That's one st decreased.

Slip that resulting st from the left-hand needle back to the right-hand needle. Note that the working yarn isn't being used right now, so is still being held at the back of the work.

Now pass the second st on the right-hand needle over the first st on the right-hand needle, decreasing another stitch.

And slip that resulting st back to the left-hand needle.

Then slip the second st on the left-hand needle over the first again, like you did with the first decrease. You've decreased 3 sts so far.

And it will look like this! All that is is the side sts of the cable passed over a (somewhat) center stitch.

Slip that first purl st from the right-hand needle to the left-hand needle so it sits next to the decreased clump of knit stitches.

Bring the yarn to the front

and purl those stitches together.

And you're done! Decrease completed. You can carry on with your reverse stockinette stitch.