Abbreviations, and other useful things to know

[knittingbanshee]

So, I decided to make this my sticky post in this journal. Because otherwise I will forget it exists, and I will not update it. And it will need updating as I add more patterns. 

Abbreviations

One of the things I find daunting about patterns is the abbreviations. Because a) I'm never sure what all of them mean, and b) not everybody writes patterns the same way, and what makes sense to me probably doesn't make sense at all for someone else. Hence why I am compiling this (hopefully) alphabetical list of (hopefully) all the abbreviations I use in my patterns.

Note: All explanations are given for right handed knitters, and assume that you work your stitches from the left needle onto the right one.

~K~

kX

Knit X stitches

kX tbl

Knit X stitches, through the back of the loop. That is, instead of inserting the right needle between the front and back loops of the stitch from left to right, picking up the front of the stitch, insert the needle from right to left and pick up the back of the stitch

kXtog

Knit X stitches together, reducing from X to 1 stitches

kf&b

Knit a stitch twice, once through the front loop (as normal), once through the back loop

~P~

pX

Purl X stitches

psso

Pass the stitch that was previously slipped from left to right needle over a knitted stich, reducing the number of stitches by one. Generally used in the combination: "s1, k1, psso"

~R~

Rib(XbyX)

Create a rib by repeating "kX, pX" until the end of the row. The WS row will then match the existing stitches by purling on what on the RS is a knit stitch and knitting on what one the RS is a purl stitch.

~S~

sX

Slip X stitches from the left to the right needle.

~Y~

yfwd

Bring the yarn forward, from behind the work to the front of the work, over the needle. This creates an extra stitch.