Tutorial · July 26, 2026 · 8 min read · By the Stitchfolk team

How to read knitting abbreviations: a beginner tutorial on k, p, k2tog, ssk, yo, sl st, psso

Every knitting pattern is a short list of two-letter abbreviations that you translate into stitches on your needles. This tutorial walks you through the ones you actually need for your first three projects — basic stitches, decreases, yarn-overs, and slipped stitches — in the order you will meet them.

Knitting patterns look intimidating for about ten minutes. Every line is a row of letters and numbers, and the letters are mostly two characters long. None of it is as opaque as it looks. The abbreviations are short because they are used over and over — the same k and p on every row of every pattern you will ever make — and once you can read four families of them, you can read most of the patterns you are about to pick up. This tutorial groups them in the order you meet them as a new knitter: first the two basic stitches, then the two decreases, then the yarn-over, then the slipped stitch.

1. Basic stitches: k, p, tbl, RS / WS

Two abbreviations do almost all of the work in beginner knitting. k is knit. Insert the right needle into the first stitch on the left needle from front to back, wrap the working yarn around the right needle, draw the new loop through, slip the old stitch off. That single motion produces a flat V on the right side of the fabric. p is purl. The same needle, the same loop, but the working yarn sits in front of the work instead of behind it. Purl produces a small bump. Knit row, purl row, knit row, purl row — that is the entire alphabet of stitchwork, and every fabric you make starts there.

A pattern will write out the moves that make a row. tbl , short for “through the back loop”, means a knit or purl worked into the back leg of the stitch instead of the front. Patterns ask for it when the row needs a tighter twist — ribbing, some decreases, and the occasional textured stitch. Read it as “do the stitch the same way, but from the other direction” and you will not be wrong.

Every pattern refers to the two sides of the fabric.

RS is the right side — the side that faces out when the project is finished and worn — and

WS is the wrong side, the side that faces inward. A row labelled

RS is one you would not want to purl on, because the knit Vs that show on the right side would turn into bumps. A row labelled

WS is one you would not want to knit on, for the same reason. Memorise which side is which for the project you are making, then trust the abbreviation on every row after that.

Example swatch.

Cast on 12 stitches. Hold the yarn at the back of the work for knit rows, at the front for purl rows.

Row 1 (RS):

K3, P3, K3, P3.

Row 2 (WS):

P3, K3, P3, K3.

Row 3 (RS):

Repeat row 1.

Row 4 (WS):

Repeat row 2.

Repeat those four rows until the swatch is a few inches tall. You have just knit the pattern for seed stitch, and you have read it without translating anything — k meant knit, p meant purl,

RS meant a row whose knit side faces out, and

WS meant a row whose purl side faces out.

2. Decreases: k2tog, ssk, psso

A decrease is a stitch that combines two stitches into one, which makes the fabric narrower. Every hat crown, every sweater armhole, every shape that tapers uses one. Three abbreviations cover almost every decrease you will meet as a beginner. Read each one left to right as you knit — they tell you exactly what to do with the two stitches you are about to combine. k2tog means knit two stitches together. Insert the right needle into two stitches on the left needle at once, knit them as if they were one, and slip both old stitches off. The resulting stitch leans to the right. ssk means slip, slip, knit: slip one stitch as if to knit, slip the next stitch as if to knit, then knit those two slipped stitches together through their back loops. The resulting stitch leans to the left. A pair of k2tog stitches bookend a row of ssk stitches to make the decrease invisible. psso means pass the slipped stitch over — you meet it in every pattern that uses slipped stitches as part of a decrease. The full instruction reads “slip one, knit one, pass the slipped stitch over”, abbreviated sl1, k1, psso , which removes one stitch and leans the decrease to the right. Whenever you see psso on its own, look back at the previous line to find the slipped stitch it is asking you to lift.

A decrease row on your second project will look like ordinary stockinette with three four-letter words hiding inside the knit row. That is the entire vocabulary. Read the cast-on tutorial for the stitches before the decreases and the picking-needles tutorial for the tools to knit them on — those are the two moves you need first.

Example swatch.

Cast on 12 stitches and work six rows of stockinette (knit the right side, purl the wrong side) before the decrease row.

Row 1 (RS):

K3, K2tog, K1, ssk, K3. (You now have 10 stitches on the needle.)

Row 2 (WS):

Purl.

Row 3 (RS):

K3, K2tog, ssk, K3. (You now have 8 stitches.)

Row 4 (WS):

Purl.

The two stitches that vanished on row 1 each leaned in toward the center — the k2tog leaned right, the ssk leaned left. That tiny pair of slants is the entire anatomy of a hat crown, an armhole, and a shawl edge.

3. Yarn-overs: yo, yf, yrn

A yarn-over is the laziest action in knitting: you let the yarn float over the right needle instead of working it into a stitch. Patterns write it as yo , and it almost always means the same thing — bring the yarn from the back to the front (if you are on a knit row) or from the front to the back (if you are on a purl row), then knit the next stitch normally. The yarn-over itself becomes a hole on the next row, and that hole is the eyelet you see in lace patterns. One abbreviation, one new stitch, one new hole.

Two close cousins appear in patterns written before the year 2000. yf stands for “yarn forward” — a yarn-over worked on a knit row. yrn stands for “yarn round needle” — a yarn-over that wraps the needle once on its way past, used when the next stitch is a purl. Both produce the same eyelet. Modern patterns almost always just write yo , but if you pick up an older booklet, yf and yrn are the same move.

Example swatch.

Cast on 8 stitches and knit two rows of stockinette for a base.

Row 1 (RS):

K2, yo, K2, yo, K2. (You now have 10 stitches.)

Row 2 (WS):

Purl, working the yarn-over as a regular stitch. (You are back to 10 stitches, but two of them are eyelets.)

Row 3 (RS):

Knit.

Row 4 (WS):

Purl.

You just made two eyelets in a row of plain stockinette. Repeat rows one through four a few times and you have a swatch full of small holes — the building block of every lace shawl, lace scarf, and lace cowl you are about to read.

4. Slipped stitches: sl st, psso, sl1 wyif / wyib

Slipping a stitch means passing it from the left needle to the right needle without knitting or purling it. Patterns write it sl st or, when only one stitch is slipped, sl1 . A slipped stitch holds its shape — it neither grows nor shrinks, neither twists nor untwists — and that property is what makes it useful. Mosaic knitting, slip-stitch colorwork, and several decreases all depend on it. psso shows up here too, with the same meaning it had in Section 2: pass the slipped stitch over the stitch you just knit, dropping it off the needle. The full instruction reads sl1, k1, psso

— one decrease from two stitches.

Where the yarn sits matters. sl1 wyif means slip the stitch with the yarn in front — for a slipped stitch on a knit row. sl1 wyib means slip the stitch with the yarn in back — for a slipped stitch on a purl row. Move the yarn to the position the abbreviation specifies, slip the stitch, move the yarn back. Two extra seconds of work that change the look of the slip dramatically.

Example swatch.

Cast on 10 stitches and knit two rows of stockinette for a base.

Row 1 (RS):

K3, sl1 wyif, K2, psso, K3. (You now have 9 stitches.)

Row 2 (WS):

Purl, slipping the slipped stitch purlwise with the yarn in front.

Row 3 (RS):

K3, sl1 wyif, K2, psso, K3. (You now have 8 stitches.)

Row 4 (WS):

Purl, slipping the slipped stitch purlwise with the yarn in front.

You have just knit two decreases in a row using a slipped stitch as the back half of each one. That same instruction appears all over lace edgings — the long-tail cast on from the first tutorial sets up the edge, the slipped-stitch decrease shapes it.

Try it on a pattern

Simple Knit Slouch Hat — the first pattern that puts it all together

A slouchy worsted-weight hat worked in the round on a 16-inch circular and finished in a weekend. It uses k, p, k2tog, ssk, and yo — every abbreviation you just learned, in one short project that ends with a wearable hat.

Read the pattern →

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