In this post I’m going to show you how to Knit two together (K2tog) and Purl two together (P2tog)

These are both “decrease” knitting stitches.  These techniques will help you reduce the number of stitches that you have.  Your pattern will usually tell you which to use.

How to Knit two together (K2tog)

This is a knitted decrease done on the “Knitted” side of your work.  Simply speaking it is what it sounds…knitting two stitches at the same time, so you end up with one stitch.

You will make this stitch as follows:

And that’s it, you’ve decreased one stitch.

How to Purl two together (P2tog)

Purl two together is the same as knit two together, but on the purl side.  To reduce a stitch on the purl-side in this way you will carry out the following steps:

There you go, one stitch reduced on the purl side! 🙂 simple huh?

What is SSK?

You might have spotted another decrease stitch….Slip Slip Knit (SSK), this is the “sister” stitch to K2tog and they are often used together as follows:

When you’re following a pattern, you might find that the design uses SSK at one “side” of the row / item and K2tog at the other end.

Like Make 1 Left (M1L) and Make 1 Right (M1R), this is because SSK “leans” to the left and K2tog “leans” to the right.

For example, if we look at my Freddie the Field Mouse pattern, you will see that his body decreases slant each side.

You should use whichever stitch you pattern tells you to use…just now hopefully you understand why you will need both! 🙂

Hope that helps!

Jo