in the pattern when you get to the end of the 48th row it says to SSK SSK is the abbreviation for a slip slip knit and that is a decrease and what we want to do now is take the top of this hat and decrease it down to make it fit your head better so here's how you do a slip slip knit you slip it as if you're gonna knit so you're going in from the left and you slip it off the needle you don't do a stitch at all and you do it again that's one slip there's two slips that slip slip and now you're going to stick the left needle in and knit it so you knit the two together the two stitches become one and that's a decrease this is a left-facing decrease you can kind of see how the left loop hides underneath the right loop and so it makes the right loop kind of tilt to the left and it's called a left facing decrease so the pattern says slip slip knit knit one which is following what you did before purl one and then slip slip knit again so you're gonna slip as if you're getting slip as if you're knitting go in from the left and then knit slip slip knit it's a great decrease in in this hat it hides the knit the purl row underneath the knit row which is fabulous