A neater and faster way to knit an SSK in one move
By popular acclaim, SSK is most knitters’ favorite left-leaning decrease. It’s relatively easy and relatively neat. However, it also involves three steps. It’s called “slip, slip, knit” for a reason. What if I told you you can achieve similar results in one move only?
The one-move SSK also leans to the left and some say it’s the neatest left-slanting decreases of them all. While results will depend a bit on your tension and your knitting style, there’s certainly no denying that this technique can be super-efficient. Let’s show you how to knit it!
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Instructions: How to knit the one-move SSK
This left-leaning decrease employs a little trick to work through two stitches at the same time. It's a bit fiddly at first but can be very rewarding.
Instructions
- Enter the next stitch on the left needle knitwise.
- While keeping the first stitch on the left needle, enter the second stitch on the left needle through the backloop (this will automatically twist the first stitch).
- Pivot your right needle towards the right side (essentially enlarging the left loop) and wrap the working yarn around the needle counter-clockwise.
- Pull the yarn through the little triangular hole at the bottom of both stitches. It can be a bit tight. It helps if you secure the stitch with your right index finger as you try to pull through.
- Drop both stitches off the left needle and tighten up to finish the one-move ssk.
It’s important to note that the one-move SSK is structurally slightly different. When worked the way I showed you above, the second stitch will not be balanced but twisted. It’s the same as knitting an SSPK. For a lot of people, this looks a bit neater.
As a result, I’d rather propose the name “one-move SSPK” or maybe “one move left-leaning decrease”. I personally prefer what I dubbed “k2tog-left“. While it may involve 2 more steps, the results are quite a bit neater for me.
Anyway, that’s how to knit the one-move SSK. Comment below with your questions
Dear Norman
I love to see your instruction video’s, you are a very well teatcher thank you very much deep regards from Katinka Belgium
Thank you so much for clear videos and your friendly narration. I am 46 and have been knitting for 35 years and had never come across this method for decreasing. I like your term “k2tog. left” because it perfectly describes the appearance of the stitch. Finally a decrease that will make raglan shoulders look symmetrical!
Norman, I love your videos and I love the one move SSK! Could you kindly make a video on how to tink it back? I had made a knitting error earlier in the row and made a mess out of trying to tink back the one move SSK but, fortunately, I had a life line one row below!
Hey, sorry, that’s not possible on such a short notice and I doubt that a big portion of my audience is interested in it regardless.
But just insert your knitting needle into both stitches. And then you need to twist them back one by one until they form nice little “V”s
Yes that does work 👍❗️☑️
I learned this in Patty Lyon’s Advanced Knitting Fixes:
you have to insert your needle back to front through both loops. Then just flip the first one and you’re done!
I’ve loved Patty Lyon’s (the OG guru!!) one move SSK since I first learned it in class nearly 20 years ago. You are skipping the last two steps of her move which is why it’s coming out a bit sloppy. I was just googling One move SSK to send her link to a friend of mine that doesn’t have her book, and saw your video.
The steps you missed was it Patty’s “why” when you knit the next stitch it tightens up the one that comes before it, but in an SSK that means the one that is on the bottom
1) Pivot the needle away a LOT and that stretches our the second stitch, making the one on top smaller
2) Exit only the fist stitch, while you give a tug to the bottom st. all in one move.
If you follow all her steps (in the decrease chapter of Patty’s Knitting Bag of Tricks) you’ll get a really perfect ssk simply and quickly.
I’m not describing it well, but you can find it on her YouTube.
I’m glad I stumbled onto your page though. It looks like a great collection of tips from all over. I’m going to spent a bit of time looking around!!
I have a seperate tutorial for this technique which I call k2tog-left. Naming conventions can be a big confusing and I think that is what you are refering to.