Single decrease stitches

k2tog or p2tog - Knit 2 together, purl 2 together

This is a decrease that should slant to the right.  This decrease goes the direction of your knitting.  What I mean is, that you take the stitch that you are immediately working on, and put it on top the next stitch that you would work on.  Then you knit together as one stitch, or purl as one stitch.



SSK/SSP - slip slip knit, slip slip purl 

This term absolutely confused me as I learned loom knitting before knitting with needles.  It's actually really simple.   You're actually decreasing in a way that faces the opposite direction of which you are knitting (if you loom knit clockwise like me, your decrease should be slanting to the left). The name "slip slip knit/purl" makes sense in needle knitting, if you've ever done it before, but it sounds confusing if you're loom knitting.  Take your immediate peg (name this peg 1), and do nothing.  Take the loop off of peg 2 (which is the next peg in the direction in which you are knitting), and put in on peg 1. Knit those two stitches as one. If you are doing a decrease (rather than making eyelets for lace), then move the loop on peg 1 to peg 2.  Easy as pie!



s1k1psso / SKP - slip one knit one, pass slipped stitch over

If you have read a lot of patterns, you see this sometimes.  It's also a left-slanting decrease.  When I look at patterns, a lot of them that are from 2006 or older use this instead of ssk.  It's really a matter of preference, but they basically look the same. If you've ever done the simple knitted cast-off on a loom (as opposed to using a crochet hook), you have done an s1k1psso.  Take the immediate peg (peg 1), and skip it. Knit over peg 2 with the working yarn, and then take the loop off peg 1 (that was skipped) and put it on peg 2.  There should be two loops on peg 2, with the peg 1 loop being above the loop that you knitted over previously on peg 2.  Knit over so that the peg 1 loop remains on peg 2.