If you’ve been knitting for some time, you probably figured it out. Or maybe a knitting friend helped you to understand what “knitwise” and “purlwise” mean.
If you are new to knitting and/or are still puzzled by these terms, I’ll be happy to explain what each of these words means, why we need them, and how we can apply them to our everyday knitting.
WHAT DOES “KNITWISE” MEAN?
When we knit a stitch using a classic knitting style, we insert the tip of the right needle into that stitch from left to right.
That’s why this way of entering a stitch is called “knitwise”.
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When a pattern tells us to slip a stitch knitwise, we insert the right needle into that stitch from left to right and ease the left needle out, leaving the stitch on the right needle.
In the above photo, we slipped one stitch knitwise with the yarn at the back of the work, but sometimes we need to slip a stitch knitwise with the yarn in front of the work.
HOW TO SLIP A STITCH KNITWISE WITH YARN IN FRONT?
In that case, we start by bringing the yarn to the front of the fabric.
Then we insert the right needle into the first stitch from the tip of the left needle knitwise (from left to right).
And slip this stitch to the right needle.
As you see, the process of slipping knitwise is the same for knit and purl stitches. The result is also the same – when we slip a stitch knitwise, we twist this stitch by changing the way the stitch sits on a knitting needle.
In some situations we need that twist, but in most cases, we simply want to move a stitch from one needle to the other without twisting it or otherwise changing its look.
That’s when we slip a stitch purlwise.
WHAT DOES “PURLWISE” MEAN?
As you’ve probably guessed, when we slip a stitch purlwise, we insert the right needle into a stitch the same way as we do when we purl a stitch – from right to left.
Then we take the left needle out, leaving this stitch on the right needle.
We’ve just slipped one stitch purlwise with the yarn at the back of the work.
HOW TO SLIP A STITCH PURLWISE WITH YARN IN FRONT?
When we need to slip a stitch with the yarn in front of the work, we simply bring the yarn to the front of the fabric, insert the right needle into the stitch purlwise (from right to left), and take the left needle out, leaving this stitch on the right needle.
As you see, this process is the same for both types of stitches – knits and purls.
HOW TO SLIP A STITCH WHEN THE PATTERN DOES NOT SPECIFY?
Slipping purlwise is much more common than slipping knitwise.
In fact, it happens so often that when a pattern tells us to “slip 1 stitch” without specifying how exactly we should do it, we slip it purlwise with the yarn at the back of the work.
The fact that a stitch slipped knitwise is twisted, and a stitch slipped purlwise is not, also applies to rare cases when we need to slip stitches from the right needle to the left needle.
SLIPPING KNITWISE AND PURLWISE TO THE LEFT NEEDLE
Even though we normally knit from right to left, we use the word “knitwise” when we need to twist a stitch as we slip it to the left needle.
That’s when we insert the tip of the left needle from right to left into the first stitch on the right needle.
When we move a stitch to the left needle without twisting it, we use the word “purlwise” and insert the tip of the left needle into the stitch from left to right.
Once you understand the simple difference between slipping stitches knitwise and purlwise, you will know exactly what to do every time a pattern instructs you to move stitches between the needles.
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This and 31 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #8.