Am I being dense?
Wouldn’t you achieve the same thing with a “knit 2 tog through back loops”?
It seems to work for me and I find it much easier.
Is there a difference?
Ssk
When you do an ssk, you slip the stitches first to change their orientation–essentially twisting them before you knit them together through the back loop.
If you like the way your decrease looks in the pattern you’re working, then keep using it. It’s yours, after all.:shrug:
The difference is that k2tog is creating a right slanting decrease and ssk is a left slanting decrease. You’ll need to do the correct one in order to complete the project properly.
But k2tog through the back loop creates a left-leaning decrease, as well.
I had not thought of it, but you are right a k2tog tbl and a regular SSK do look a lot the same. I tried one of each, and along with that I tried the “improved” SSK where you slip the first stitch kw and the 2nd st pw and then knit the 2 tog as in a ssk. It does look a little different. You might try it and see if it makes a big enough difference to do it. As Ingrid said, it’s your choice.
SSK is essentially like slip 1, k1, psso. Doing it as k2togtbl twists the 2nd st and it doesn’t lie as flat. try it all different ways and see which you like better.
You know, Rosemary, I always thought the same thing. But now that the others have said that it’s reorienting the stitches on the needle it makes more sense to me on why a ssk would be called for instead of a K2togtbl. Thanks for asking that question for all of us.