Purl oriented centered double decrease- tutorial

Recently, while designing a shawl, I realized that I needed a way to do a knit side oriented double decrease but from the purl side (the stitch is worked on the purl side, but the double decrease shows up on the knit side).  Happily, I found a blog with a fairly simple explanation (plus a great photo tutorial) of how to do this.  Yay!

For many knitters, this might be the end of it, but it got me to wondering.  How would a knitter do a double decrease that was purl side oriented?

While fleegle's trick is super cool, on the purl side it look like an elaborate right leaning decrease.  I (and possibly you) want to be able to make a double decrease that is centered on the purl side.  But, alas, google was not helpful.  A search yielded no useful results (if I missed a tutorial for this, please let me know.) 

The knitting nerd in me (and that's a large part of me) insisted that I figure it out.

It turns out to be fairly simple to do.  All you need to do is: p2tog, s1, psso. 

I found slipping the stitch over on the right needle to be a bit tricky, so I moved the the stitches onto the left needle for slipping.  The less tricky (for me at least) way is what I've included in the photo tutorial below.

PSO-CDD (in 4 easy-ish steps):

1) Purl two together.

2) Move stitch from right needle to left needle.

 3) Pass slipped stitch over.

4) Move stitch back onto right needle.

Purl side view:

Knit side view:

So simple, yet so complex looking (as is much of knitting).  I hope this has helped you in your search to become a more nerdy knitter.

Just me, huh?
Joyce

P.S. I was pretty excited about my status as a nerdy knitter when I figured this out (even though I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who has).  So I texted TK and told her that I'd figured out how to do a purl side oriented centered double decrease.  A short time later I got a text in return that said, "Is it p2tog, s1, psso?"  Yep, ego deflated.  Tell me again why I hang out with such smart knitters?

The old becomes new again

I've recently been introduced to the time sink exciting possibilities of Pinterest.  If you're not on Pinterest, I'm sorry I did that to you.  If you are, how did you manage to pull yourself away long enough to come here? 

I've found a lot of recipes for making lotions and lip balms through Pinterest, but my time on the website has had an unexpected side effect.

I've fallen in love with shawls all over again.  Anyone who's met me in a knitting store (on the street, in class, at national entomology meetings) knows that I've had an obsession with shawls for several years now.  However, I realized this past week that while I love wearing them and designing them, I'd kind of stopped looking at them as the objects of beauty that they really are.  Instead, I see them as individual stitches on a large canvas.

But then I saw this picture.

And this one.

And this one.

All I can say is Wow! Oh, and you should totally google 'vintage lace shawls'.  I'll wait.

You probably noticed that they are not knitted shawls, but rather actual lace which is much more time consuming than knitting. (Or so I've heard.  I don't know anyone that makes non-knitted lace.  I consider this to be a serious gap in my crafting social calendar.)  But when I went back to Ravelry, I discovered that I had started seeing the lace again instead of just the stitches.  And fell in love all over again. 

I lost my heart to lace shawls (sorry, Hubbie),
Joyce

P.S. If you decide to join Pinterest, there's a two to three day waiting period similar to what Ravelry had when they first started.  But don't say I didn't warn you.