How to Knit an SSP Decrease (Slip, Slip, Purl)

The slip, slip, purl decrease is popular in sweater knitting and shawls. This is one of the easiest decreases in knitting because it really only requires slipping stitches and one more advanced stitch called a p2togtbl.

This decrease is very similar to a slip, slip, knit decrease. Ssp is simply the reverse of this. In order to do this decrease in a way that aligns with the ssk on the other rows, the stitches must be flipped around and the p2tog should be done through the back loop. This might all sound tricky, but once you've done it a few times, it's really not that difficult, and you'll start to see how this decrease stitch matches the ssk.

If you're anything like the editors of AllFreeKnitting, you probably like to put your own spin on the knitting patterns that you try. One thing that you can do to customize patterns (especially hat patterns) is to change the decreasing methods. Once you understand the basics of knitting math, you can easily use your own decreasing methods (like the SSP) to make every pattern one-of-a-kind!