SC2TOG Tension Help

[cjudge14]

Hello everyone! I’m Car and I’m new to the forum. 

As the title states, I’m looking for some help with the sc2tog stitch. I am working on making stuffed hippos from a book. When I was making the purple hippo (first pic), I noticed there was some stretching along the decreases, especially around the eyes. This time I am making a pink one and tried to avoid the stretching. While the eyes look better, this time the snout has major stretching despite my best efforts. I tried to keep my stitches looser than normal to try and account for the decrease, but did that make it worse? 

 

Any help would be appreciated! If I posted something wrong in this forum please let me know! 

[Granny Square]

Hi Car, welcome to the 'ville!

I think any '2 tog' stitch is going to be looser than usual, because 1 stitch has to 'reach' a bit to combine 2.  

If anything, I'd try to tighten it up, maybe even sub the next smaller hook for the decreases.

Or, there's also a trick for making 'invisible' decreases - you might try this https://www.crochetspot.com/how-to-crochet-single-crochet-invisible-decrease/

Also...does the book give a gauge?  It looks like your stitches in general are a tad on the loose side, and for a stuffie you want a tight-ish (not stiff, but solid, no-holes) fabric.  Unless there's some camera angle thing going on, it looks like you are only getting about 2 stitches per inch, and you probably want at least double that.  It also looks like you may be working with 2 strands of worsted weight yarn held together, if so would also work against achieving a tight fabric in general.

 

 

 

[bgs]

Check out the tutorials invisible decrease and perfecting invisible increase

https://www.planetjune.com/blog/tutorials/crochet-tutorials/