Decreasing in treble crochet, like decreasing in the other basic crochet stitches, is slightly more complicated than increasing but not all that difficult once you understand the process. Basically, you are going to work two treble crochet stitches side-by-side (in adjoining stitches) but you will leave the final step off of each of those stitches and then use a single stitch at the end to link the tops of the two stitches together. This effectively turns the two stitches into one stitch. Because of this, the stitch is also called the “treble crochet two together” and uses the crochet abbreviation tr2tog. It may also be abbreviated with “dec” (for decrease). This is also known as a cluster of two; crochet clusters can consist of many more stitches linked together at the top; decreases are generally considered to be just clusters of two. Note that this is the crochet tutorial for treble crochet decrease when crocheting in American terms. We are going to work it step-by-step here as a recap but just for an overview, here are the steps of a classic treble crochet: The first portion of your treble crochet decrease will consist of the first five of these steps. You will NOT complete the sixth step. For now, let’s just start with step one: yarn over twice. You will have two loops remaining on your crochet hook. Again, this is the same as step five of your typical treble crochet stitch. You’re going to begin working the second of the two treble crochet stitches that make up the pair that you crochet together. So, you’re going to keep the two loops on the hook that are already there and you are going to yarn over twice. At this stage of your regular treble crochet stitch (which would be step three above) there would be four loops on your crochet hook. Note that there are five loops on your crochet hook. Remember that this is because you have an extra loop on the hook from the unfinished first treble crochet of the pair. You will yarn over and pull through the first two loops on the hook, leaving you with four loops on the hook. Then you will repeat and you will be left with three loops on the hook. Notice that you have now completed steps 1 through 5 of the classic treble crochet stitch, which means that your first and second stitches of the tr2tog pair are now the same height. So, yarn over and pull through all three loops remaining on hook. That’s it; you’ve completed your treble crochet decrease!
