How to Do an Invisible Decrease

An invisible decrease is a tidy way to decrease in amigurumi without leaving behind a bulky or noticeable gap. You'll often see it written as inv dec, or sometimes just dec, and it's a common way to shape heads, bodies, and other rounded pieces.

Step 1. Insert your hook into the front loop only of the next stitch. Then, without stopping, insert your hook into the front loop only of the stitch right after that one too. You should now have 2 front loops caught on your hook, for 3 loops in total.

Step 2. Yarn over and draw through both of those front loops. Just like that, you've merged the 2 stitches you hooked into down into a single one.

Step 3. Now yarn over once more and pull through the loops that remain on your hook, exactly the way you'd finish off a regular single crochet. You'll be left with a single loop on the hook — and there it is, your first invisible decrease!

Because you're only working into the front loops, the decrease melts into the surrounding fabric and helps your amigurumi hold a cleaner shape. In our patterns, we use invisible decreases by default unless we tell you otherwise.

You can see the effect below: decreasing pulls the work inward and curves the shape. On the left are the decrease stitches, set against the right side where there are only regular single crochet stitches. 

It might feel a touch clumsy on your first go, but after a few attempts it gets much easier — and it makes a real difference in how polished your finished piece ends up looking.