I have recently learnt there are other stitches apart from knit and purl and to be quite honest, I'm finding it a little overwhelming even with the help of the youtube videos and just wanted to ask why is ssk the same as k2tog because they are both decreasing a stitch:huh:

I asked that one too! I think............ (could be wrong, has been known) that it's how the stitches lay on either side of your work. Looks neater I guess. Don't quote me.....

They both decrease a stitch but they produce a different finish (the mark they leave faces opposite directions and SSK is much less obtrusive on stocking stitch than k2tog) so in the same way that there are different cast ons depending on what you're knitting, there are also different ways to gain or reduce stitches to suit your knitting.

K2tog is pretty self explanatory (just put your needle through 2 stitches instead of 1 and knit them together) but SSK is more fiddly but more cosmetically pretty. For the moment I'd just work on k2tog if I were you- once you're a bit more confident you can add all the different variations.

My view is that knitting is all just knit and purl (I'll allow yarnovers as a third item). My mother wouldn't recognise ssk if it bit her, the other decrease to k2tog that I was taught was slip one, knit one, pass slipped stitch over. It gets the same result, a decrease that leans the other way to a k2tog. If you were decreasing at the top of a sleeve you'd have one of each sort at each side so that the line of decreases leaned in like / \ that. You can get matched increases as well. In terms of numbers they do the same thing but they can affect the look of the finished item.

There's a link here (http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/decreases) to photos of what they look like knitted and videos of how to do them. I like this site because you can see what the piece of knitting looks like which is better than line diagrams in a book.

Thank you all for your comments and the helpful link, (bookmarked) I am sure I have got it this time, i think I do think that ssk looks neater, now that I know how to do it :)

SSK and K2tog are essentially give a decrease with the lean the other way - you would use one on one end of the knitting and one on the other. I have used both SSK and S1K1 pass the S over, the only difference between these 2 really is that it tensions the front stitch a little bit differently. I find that I like SSK better but for other people the other method works better - you just need to have a play :)