Stitch confusion

#1

I’m reluctant to call myself a beginner… I suppose I’m an on-again-off-again intermediate knitter. I don’t generally have problems understanding abbreviations, but I haven’t knitted in a while, so maybe that’s the root of my confusion.

Anyhow. The pattern I’m following says this: k3, pm, k14, yo, k2tog, k1, ssk, yo, k14, pm, k3

The part I’m having trouble with is “ssk”, which according to the pattern’s author means this: ssk = slip 2 sts knitwise, knit these 2 together

I can’t for the life of me understand how one would slip the stitches FIRST and then knit them together. How does that work? Is there something I’m missing? Any help would be appreciated.

#2

You slip them [U]separately[/U], knitwise, then knit together. It reorients them and makes a left leaning decrease like sl 1, k1, psso, which you can do if you can’t figure out ssk. There’s a video in the Decreases section.

#3

Okay! Thank you! I’d looked at the decreases section before, but I guess I was just so flustered that I didn’t even see the ssk video. facepalm