Technique · Knitting
How to read a knitting pattern
A knitting pattern is written in a compressed notation that assumes you already know it, which is a reasonable assumption about everybody except the people who most need to read one. It is a small notation and it can be learned in about ten minutes.
Before any instruction, a pattern states a gauge and a needle size, and those two lines decide whether everything after them will work. The gauge says how many stitches and rows the designer got to ten centimetres in the pattern’s fabric; the needle size says what they used to get it.
The needle size is a starting suggestion, not an instruction. What you are being asked to match is the gauge, and if your hands are tighter than the designer’s you change needle until it matches. Ignoring this is why a garment comes out a size and a half wrong while every stitch count in the pattern was followed exactly.
The symbols, which are the part nobody explains:
- Asterisk
- Marks the start of something to repeat. "*k2, p2; rep from * to end" means work k2, p2 over and over until the row runs out.
- Square brackets or round brackets
- Group a set of instructions to be repeated a stated number of times: "[k2, p1] 4 times" works those three stitches four times over.
- Brackets after a size
- Sizing. "Cast on 80 (88, 96, 104) sts" gives the smallest size first and the larger ones in order inside the brackets. Mark your size through the whole pattern before starting.
- A number at the end of a row
- The stitch count you should have after working it. The most useful checkpoint in any pattern, and the thing to check when something has gone wrong.
- RS and WS
- Right side and wrong side — the face that will show and the one that will not. Patterns worked flat alternate them, and instructions differ by which you are on.
The abbreviations themselves are not standardised across the whole craft, though the common ones are near-universal and the Craft Yarn Council publishes a widely used list. Any pattern worth following states its own abbreviations somewhere, and a pattern that does not is telling you something about how carefully it was written.
Step 1: Read the whole thing first
Before casting on. You are looking for anything you cannot do yet, which is much better discovered now than in row forty.
Step 2: Mark your size throughout
Go through and highlight your number in every bracket. Losing track of which number is yours midway through is the commonest way a garment goes wrong.
Step 3: Knit a swatch and measure it
In the pattern’s stitch, over more than ten centimetres, and let it relax before measuring. Change needle size until it matches.
Step 4: Check the stitch count at the end of each row that states one
It takes five seconds and it catches an error in the row it happened rather than twenty rows later.
Step 5: Keep track of the row you are on
A row counter, a pencil mark or a note. Every knitter who says they can remember has at some point been wrong about it.
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.
- how do I read a knitting pattern
- what do the abbreviations in a knitting pattern mean
- what do asterisks mean in a knitting pattern
- what do the brackets in a knitting pattern mean
- how do knitting pattern sizes work
- what does rep from * mean in knitting
Sources for this section
- Standards & Guidelines for Crochet and Knitting (opens in a new tab) — Craft Yarn Council · Standards body · read — supports the claim
Part of Knitting. Last reviewed 2026-08-30.