Technique · Knitting
Knit and purl, and reading the fabric
Knitting has two stitches. Everything else is an arrangement of them, and once you can see which is which on the needle you can read almost any plain fabric back to the instructions that made it — which is the skill that turns following a pattern into understanding one.
A knit stitch and a purl stitch are one stitch viewed from the two sides of the fabric. Work a knit stitch and turn the piece over, and you are looking at a purl. Nothing is different about the loop; what differs is which side of it faces you and which way the yarn went round.
That single fact explains the whole of plain knitting. Every named fabric below is a rule about which face you present on which stitch of which row, and none of them is a new technique.
What the arrangements produce:
- Garter stitch
- Knit every row, worked flatBoth faces show purl bumps in ridges. Lies flat, does not curl, reversible, and squashier and shorter than it looks.
- Stocking stitch
- Knit one row, purl the nextSmooth V-shaped stitches on one face and bumps on the other. The classic knitted look, and it curls.
- Rib
- Alternate columns of knit and purlVertical columns that pull together sideways, so the fabric is strongly stretchy across its width. What cuffs are made of.
- Moss or seed stitch
- Alternate along the row and offset each rowDense, flat, reversible, textured, and slower than any of the above.
A knit stitch and a purl stitch are not the same shape, and a fabric made entirely of one face has different tensions on its two sides. The result is that the side edges roll towards the smooth face and the top and bottom roll towards the bumpy one, and no amount of care while knitting prevents it.
This is why a stocking-stitch scarf is a poor idea and why almost every knitted garment has a border of something else — a few rows of garter or rib at the edges, which is balanced fabric and holds the edge flat. Blocking reduces the curl in wool and does not eliminate it, and in acrylic it does very little.
The practical version of all this is being able to look at the stitches waiting on the left needle and see what each one is. A knit stitch, viewed from the side facing you, sits as a flat V below the needle. A purl stitch has a horizontal bar sitting across it, like a little scarf.
This is the skill that makes rib possible without counting, that lets you pick up a project after a fortnight and know which row you are on, and that turns a dropped stitch from a disaster into an inconvenience. It is worth spending a deliberate ten minutes on early, looking at a swatch and naming the stitches, rather than acquiring it accidentally over a year.
Questions this guide answers
Listed so you can tell at a glance whether this is the page you wanted. HobbyHQ keeps one guide per question family rather than a page per phrasing.
- what is the difference between knit and purl
- how do I tell a knit stitch from a purl stitch
- what is stocking stitch
- why does my knitting curl at the edges
- what is the difference between garter and stocking stitch
- how does ribbing work
Part of Knitting. Last reviewed 2026-08-30.