Recognizing the Diverse Knitting Abbreviations

For many people, especially women, knitting is a favorite hobby.  They use it to express their creative urges.  Every day they set time aside to foc...


For many people, especially women, knitting is a favorite hobby.  They use it to express their creative urges.  Every day they set time aside to focus on their knitting.  They love knitting so much that they have formed club where they share their ideas with other knitting enthusiasts.  Some knitting fans have even gone a step further and developed websites where they teach people how to knit, explain the numerous knitting abbreviations and even offer information on where to buy knitting equipment.  If you are first timer, the following are some of the abbreviations that you are sure to come across.

The first is frog.  Yes, it is the name of an animal that lives in water but it is also a knitting abbreviation.   It means undoing one or numerous knitting rows by untangling stitches that have already been made.   It is a method of resolving knitting mistakes.  Skillful and expert knitters reserve the frog for first timers who have no experience and are not familiar with other ways of avoiding mistakes when knitting.   One other common abbreviation that you can possibly stumble upon is KTBL that is sometimes known as TBL.   Knit/knitting through the back loops is what this design method stands for.

Another abbreviation in knitting is SSK, which stands for slip, slip and stitch.  In SSK, you slip two stitches one after the other into the right-hand needle and subsequently insert the left-hand needle to the front of the stitches.   What takes place is that the stitches are shifted onto the needles on the left hand.   The method coils the stitches when the stitches that have been slipped are moved to the needle on the left hand.  In other cases, you can stumble upon SSSK, which utilizes a similar method to SSK. The difference lies in the fact that 3 and not 2 stitches are knitted together after the slip stitches are moved into the left-hand needle.

If you adore knitting socks, PSSO is one abbreviation that you will definitely stumble upon.   It denotes passing the slip stitches over. What you are required to do in PSSO is slip one stitch and knit the one that follows.  Afterwards you should pass the stitch that you slipped over the one that you stitched.  If you love knitting, you should take the time to research and familiarize yourself with all the knitting abbreviations.   One thing you should realize is that it may be a long time before you can learn and master all of them.

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