Silly beginner's question about descending stitches

[Vertyshka]

So I somewhat recently picked up knitting. (Currently I'm in a small apartment that won't fit my sew-a-palooza, and it was a more space-efficient way of being creative.)

I'm attempting to knit my first bag, following these instructions: http://www.ehow.com/how_5997575_directions-knitting-beginners-market-bag.html.

Steps 4-8 are confusing me. I understand how to do YO k2t and SSK, but those are both descending stitches, right? I repeated the pattern of four rows twice before I read step 8, where I'm supposed to still apparently have my original number of stitches to bind off. Huh? Is this a fault of the directions or the hapless knitter (e.g. myself)?

I'll also add that when I was making the bottom of the bag, I discovered that I had been my counting rows wrong - instead of knitting 32, I knitted 64. So instead of binding off 16 in step 8, I'll be binding off 32. Once I figured that part out, I didn't think it'd affect the rest of the pattern, since it'd just give me a bigger bag, but I'm starting to wonder if that'll become a problem too.

Help?

[soozeq]

Yes, k2tog and ssk are decrease stitches, but the yo offsets them by making a stitch. One round is all YO, k2tog, then a plain knit round, then yo ssk on the next round. So the decs take away a stitch but the yo adds one. Think of the yo as like a knit stitch, except the R needle isn't inserted into a stitch on the Left needle.

Instructions that say to make a yo by bringing the yarn in front can really be confusing. If the next st is a purl, you're supposed to have the yarn in front, and people don't often realize they should bring it all the way around the needle to the front again to make the yo. That's why a yo is better described as wrapping the yarn around the needle as if you're making a stitch, then you do the next st in the pattern.

The 16 sts you BO later have nothing to do with the number of rows you knit. The first part, where you were to knit 32 rows/16 ridges, form the bottom of the bag. Then you pick up sts all the way around the edges of that square and do the yo/dec sts all the way up to make the sides/body of the bag. The bag will be a lot larger, so will use quite a lot more yarn and you may want to stop and look at it after you've done a few inches in the round to see if it'll be too big. Knitting for 15" will make the depth a bit short for the width though, so you might want to adjust that and make it 18" or something if you go with the larger size, just to keep it proportionate.

[Vertyshka]

Thank you so much! That clears it up. I don't think I was doing YO with the SSK, which was likely my problem.