Decrease series that doesn’t decrease?

[Mkhpeltier]

The crochet repeat series is* 1 dc, skip, 1 dc, ch1*.  This is supposed to decease the number of stitches but I don’t see how? The skip1 and ch1 cancel each other out so I get the same number. What am I doing wrong?

[bgs]

Not enough info for me to figure it out.  Study the pattern as a whole, study the photos.  Look at how its treating stitch counts for other rows or rounds.  Some break it down into how many of each stitch made including chains, others do not count chains, some will list number of chain spaces.  Sometimes I have to work the next row to see if it fits.

[Granny Square]

Welcome to the 'ville!

Something is amiss, or mis-punctuated.  "* 1 dc, skip, 1 dc, ch1*" -- skip WHAT?  It doesn't say, and 'skip' doesn't mean anything by itself.  Could it possibly mean "* 1 dc, skip 1 dc, ch1*" ?  But that is not a decrease either, you are skipping 1 DC, but chaining OVER the skipped DC, so it started with 2 stitches from the prior row (2 DC) and is still 2 stitches (1DC, chain 1).  

I see Bgs has come to the same conclusion just as I was about to hit 'post'.

[Mkhpeltier]

Thank you for your responses. I did mis type : it should be ‘skip 1’ as you thought.

This is a toddler slipper pattern and this is the top building off of the sole. The previous round was a 1 dcBLO all the way around ending with a total of 63 stitches.

Rnd 2: ch3, *1 dc, skip 1, 1 dc, ch 1,*, repeat from *to * around, sl st in top of ch-3 (total:41 st)

Rnd 3: ch 3, 1 dc, **2dc in ch 1 of row below, repeat** around, sl st in top of ch-3 (total: 41 st)

I just don’t see the decrease?

I appreciate your thoughts

[Granny Square]

Ah, thanks for confirming.  Didn't mean to give you a hard time for a typo, it's just that a lot of 'help' questions are for patterns that are  buggy and I thought this might be one of them, which it apparently is but for a different reason.

*1 dc, skip 1, 1 dc, ch 1,* -- This traverses 3 stitches from the previous row, but it also creates 3 if you include the chain (which I think you should include, but the designer apparently doesn't).  Before this row you had 63 stitches, which is 21 x 3.  If you subtract 21 chain stitches from 63 you get 42 not 41, and that doesn't include the turning chain which normally counts as a stitch.  This is one of those patterns where the stitch tally at the end of the row should be more descriptive, as in '42 DC, 21 chain spaces'.  If my logic is right, I wouldn't consider this a decrease either.

Also, round 3 would give you 42 as well.  And I presume the designer isn't counting the turning chain, and didn't mention to skip the first stitch after the turning chain, which if it isn't skipped, creates an additional stitch.  

This would annoy me and I'd (probably) consider looking for another pattern, but on the other hand 1 stitch isn't a big deal, a toddler slipper is a tiny thing and you probably could have finished it in the time it took me to think it thru and type this post (well...almost).  I think being off by 1 isn't a catastrophe, and would probably keep following it--besides, toddlers grow fast and 1 stitch isn't a huge fit difference.  It could be the designer didn't actually count her stitches but made a math error figuring what she thought the count should have been.