How to reduce size of raglan sweater pattern?

[LindaUtah]

I'm certain this question has been asked but I can't find a reference to it in the forums, and I'm not even sure I'm posting on the right forum.

I have a simple raglan sweater pattern by Peter Pan Darling that is a bit too big for my granddaughters. Where can I find information on how to decrease the size of the pattern? The smallest size is a 1 to 2 year old size.

Do I decrease by a percentage of stitches, or go by number of stitches cast on, or ??? At the rate I'm going, they'll probably just grow into the smallest pattern size before I get this figured out.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

[Ingrid]

One way to easily make something smaller is to use smaller needles/ thinner yarn.

Another is to just subtract a percentage of stitches. See what the gauge is, and determine how many inches wide you'd like it to be and cast on that many at the bottom. Then you can do the decreases the same way, I believe.

[LindaUtah]

Thank you, Ingrid. Using a percentage was the direction I was leaning, but when it came to the decreases I wasn't sure if percentages would work, so I kind of froze and decided to post the question.

[GinnyG]

Have you seen this?
http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html

[LindaUtah]

Oh, wow! That's exactly what I need, GinnyG! Thanks so much.

[suzeeq]

Another way to resize a pattern is to look at the difference in sts between the patterns and reduce (or enlarge) by one or two sizes, depending on what measurement you want to end up with.