Knitting glossary

Knitting patterns are written in shorthand for good reason — a sweater described in long-form prose would run twenty pages and be impossible to read while knitting. The abbreviations below are stable across patterns in this catalogue and across most modern knitting publications. When a pattern uses anything outside this list, the pattern explains it in its own notes.

k — knit

Insert the right needle front-to-back into the next stitch on the left needle, wrap the working yarn counter-clockwise around the right needle, draw a loop through, and slip the original stitch off. The single most-used stitch in knitting.

p — purl

The mirror of a knit. Insert the right needle back-to-front into the next stitch with the working yarn in front, wrap, draw through, and slip off. Together with the knit, this is the entire alphabet of knitting.

ssk — slip, slip, knit

A left-leaning decrease. Slip two stitches one at a time knitwise, return them to the left needle, and knit the two together through the back loops. Pairs neatly with k2tog as a mirrored decrease at either side of a centre line.

k2tog — knit two together

A right-leaning decrease. Insert the right needle through two stitches at once and knit them as one. Used everywhere from raglan shaping to lace.

yo — yarn over

An eyelet-making increase. Bring the yarn over the right needle to the back, then continue knitting; the loop becomes a new stitch on the next row. The foundation of every lace pattern.

m1 — make one

A nearly-invisible increase. Pick up the horizontal strand between the last and next stitch from front to back, then knit it through the back loop. M1L leans left, M1R leans right.

sl — slip

Pass a stitch from the left needle to the right needle without working it. Unless the pattern says otherwise, slip purlwise with the yarn held to the wrong side.

wyib — with yarn in back

Hold the working yarn behind the work while slipping a stitch. Used in slip-stitch patterns and brioche.

wyif — with yarn in front

Hold the working yarn in front of the work while slipping a stitch. Produces a horizontal float on the public side, often as part of a slip-stitch motif.

BO — bind off

Finish a row of stitches by passing one over the next so each one is secured. The bind-off should be roughly as stretchy as the cast-on for the project to fit well.

CO — cast on

Establish the first row of stitches on the needle. Long-tail is the most common and serves almost every pattern in our catalogue.

rep — repeat

Work the instruction inside the brackets again, the number of times noted.

rnd — round

A row worked in the round (in a circle). When working in the round there is no wrong-side row.

rs — right side

The public side of the fabric — the side you intend to show.

ws — wrong side

The inside of the fabric — usually the side facing you on every other row of flat knitting.

st(s) — stitch(es)

One loop on a needle. The basic unit of knitting.

pm — place marker

Slip a stitch marker onto the right needle to mark a location in the work — typically a section boundary or a shaping point.

sm — slip marker

Move the marker from the left needle to the right needle as you come to it.

kfb — knit front and back

A simple two-into-one increase that leaves a small bar.

psso — pass slipped stitch over

Slip a stitch, work the next stitch (or stitches), then lift the slipped stitch over the worked one and off the needle.