Ok, have some questions here on SSK…
First of all, I have a knitting teacher friend who knits English, Western method, and any time she comes to a SSK in directions, she does a K2tog TBL and encourages us to do the same… all well and good.
However, as a combined knitter myself, I have looked at Grumperina’s and Annie Modesitt’s. Grumperina gives a couple options for left-slanting, and Annie specifically states, even in a video, that when you are a combined knitter and you come across the 2 stitches that are “twisted” from being purled combined, that for a left-slanting decrease, the stitches are already perfectly placed and so all you do is k2tog TBL. Oppositely, she says for right-slanting decreases that when you come across the twisted stitches, you have to “correct” their position, so slip them both to the right needle and then back to the left so they are oriented straight, and then do a normal K2tog.
I am a combined knitter myself, but because of this, for projects like lace, I go back to western purling because I am at a loss for what is “correct.” In that case, I do the “improved” SSK, slipping 1 k-wise and the other p-wise.
So that’s a bunch of babble and not so many questions… Here’s the big question. In regard to my friend that does the SSK as K2tog TBL when the stitches are normally oriented, how can this be right if Annie is right that doing a K2tog TBL when the stitches are “twisted” is right? In my mind’s eye, a K2tog TBL with properly oriented stitches would twist that decrease… I guess in some cases it doesn’t matter, but is that right? So that would mean that in Annie’s case, K2tog TBL with twisted stitches would both untwist them and make it a left slant, so that would be correct for combined knitters…
I’m asking because I’m working on lace and want everything to be right and look pretty… right now I’m doing the western purling and wish I wasn’t…
Thanks so much for your help!
