Common Knitting Abbreviations

Knowing how to read knitting patterns and knitting charts is something that many knitters take for granted—once you know how to do it, reading a pattern is almost second nature. For beginners, however, knitting patterns can present a little bit of a challenge.  The biggest obstacle novice knitters encounter are the frequently used knitting abbreviations. At first glance, many of the symbols used in knitting patterns can look like gibberish to the untrained eye. Committing a couple of common knitting abbreviations to heart is the first step towards becoming a pattern expert.

Knitting designers use abbreviations for a very good reason—pattern length. If every word in your pattern was written out in full, many patterns would be unmanageably long! Since most knitters adhere to a standard list of abbreviations, designers are able to convey a lot of information about their pattern without writing out every single word. Once you’re familiar with knitting abbreviations, reading a knitting pattern is a breeze.

It helps that most of the abbreviations are logical in origin. “K,” for example, is the symbol for “knit” and “p” stands for “purl.” Since designers want their patterns to be easily accessible to as many people as possible, it is very much within a designer’s interest to make his or her pattern straightforward and easy to read.

Below we've included a chart of the most common knitting abbreviations with a few links to our video tutorials for how to do those stitches. If you aren't familiar with some of these terms and what they mean, be sure to check out our knitting dictionary!