How to Understand Basic Knitting Abbreviations

Especially when just starting out with the beautiful craft of knitting, not everyone knows how to read patterns, particularly those little abbreviations. Many people learn the craft because they are taught by doing. Here are five steps to understand five very basic knitting abbreviations that you might come across in a pattern. Once the abbreviations are deciphered, you might think, that’s was so easy, I should have known. But when you are in a creative mode, sometimes you just can’t imagine what CO is.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Patience
• Practice

1. You will see in the beginning of your pattern the abbreviation CO. This stands for Cast On. For example, CO 15 STS. STS stands for Stitches.

2. You may also see PM. This stands for Place Marker. You may need to count off so many stitches and place a marker before moving on to the next stitch. By placing a marker, you will have a recognizable point that might require a special stitch, decrease or increase.

3. The abbreviation CC and MC stand for Contrasting Color and Main Color. If you are working on a project that requires multiple colors, but has one color more than the others, it will be referred to as your Main Color. If you need to use waste yarn for a particular type of cast on, the directions might say, use a Contrasting Color.

4. PAT(s) and GRP(s) will stand for pattern stitch and group(s) respectively. Your project might require that you work in a certain Pattern for a portion of the work or require you to work Groups of stitches in a particular way.

5. FOLL will refer to the term that follows. For example, "Knit the FOLL Stitches in a Seed Stitch (SD ST) Pattern." If this sentence were to be abbreviated, it would look like this: K the FOLL STS in a SD ST PAT.

6. INC or DEC stands for Increase and Decrease a particular number of stitches.