Miss Janets Knittings

After the final exam ever, I am finally present IRL again and able to allocate focus towards other important stuff, such as knitting :-)
Rather than finishing my rather extensive delayed-Christmas-knitting, I decided it was time for another hat for myself* – particularly urgent given the mad cold hitting DK these days.

The pattern is the 'Army Girl Earflap' by Lisa Shroyer. Pictures are shown in the IK winter 2005 issue, but actual pattern is only found on the website. It is knitted in a garter rib pattern (R1: k1, p1; R2: all k, working in the round). The crown is knitted in the round with regular decreases as the top i approached.
For these decreases the pattern reads: k2tog, k1, ssk.
I can't get this approach to fit with maintaining the k1-p1 pattern and I therefore decided to knit three stitches together. This gives the same net-reduction in number of stitches, but means pattern can be maintained.
My problem is that whatever I've done it looks quite messy (hard to see in photo), as the decreases are very visible – and this annoys me.

Unfortunately, despite my newly earned scientific doctoral degree, I have not been too scientific about the decrease process. I have tried several different ways, but am now not entirely sure how the different ones look!
Therefore, before I frog half a hat and retest various methods more scientifically, my question is whether any readers know an established way?
Part of the problem is probably related to the choice of yarn though, this splits quite easily and quickly adds to the messy appearance! I've used merino wool from Stof2000 (can't find yarn on the website)

It just occurs to me, that maybe the solution would lie in doing the decreases on the pure knit rows??

*I have knitted a great number of hats for myself, but always with limited success, either they're too small (big head!), rather unflattering or if they do turn out fine, I loose them!