The Knitting Fiend

Kristin of Art Barn, and many others are puzzled about slipping. “How should I slip a stitch?”

The general rule is: If the pattern doesn’t say how to slip a stitch, slip it purlwise.

Evidently, Kristin visited my site and read my advice; then she watched Knitty Gritty say the opposite, and they provided a little poem: “knit-wise unless it says other-wise”.

NO! They are wrong!!!! It should be “purl-wise unless it says other-wise.”

Ok. That’s me saying “I’m right.” Of course I think I’m right! That doesn’t help anyone.

So, I’ll provide three pieces of evidence to support my claim for “slip purl-wise unless it says other-wise”. Here goes:

1. Barbara Walker’s Treasury of Knitting, a very standard reference, says: “Sl- . . . The right hand needle is always inserted into a stitch to be slipped as if to purl unless . . .” (Italics hers. See page 7.)
2. There is an honest to goodness knitting reason for “purl-wise unless it says other-wise”: slipping purlwise doesn’t change the “seat” or “mount” of the stitch. Usually, you don’twant to change the seat while slipping.
3. That’s how I did it when I knit barred stripes¹, shown above left. If you knit that pretty stitch, you’d better slip purlwise! Otherwise, you’ll either be puzzled when you knit row 2 or you won’t notice your stitches are mounted in some unusual fashion, knit away, and eventually, you’ll wonder why so many of your stitches look twisted once, twice or even several times. (I discuss this whole seat thing in stockinette ad nauseum I - IV. )

Ok. I’ve “proven” the “standard”³ directions consider “slip” with no other information means means “slip purlwise”. As it happens, I think this is the most common standard. But, of course, there really aren’t standards in knitting terminology. and it turns out Vouge knitting has different “standard” which, I am afraid, is difficult to turn into a nifty jingle:

“If they don’t specify, slip the stitch purl-wise….Unless you are decreasing: then, slip it knit-wise on the knit rows, and purl-wise on the purl rows.”

That’s quite a bit more complicated!

Frankly, I’m going to stick with the “Walker Standard” when writing directions, and say “slip knit-wise” when writing instructions to slip stitches when working decreases on knit rows. Since there are two widely used standards, I think the “extra word” is required for clarity!

And of course, this also means if you are following directions to slip while decreasing on knit rows, you may need to try one way, look at the knitting and decide if you like the way it looks, try the other way, look again, and then decide! (Yikes!)

Ok. I’ve described why I’m right. I’ve added the extra info Linda provided which would suggest I’m not entirely right and explained why you need to look at the knitting and decide for yourself!

I could stop now.

I won’t, because I can see from my referrer logs that loads of people are also surfing to figure out how to slip purlwise or knitwise. I also get email asking me this question. So, I will illustrate how to insert the tip of the needle when slipping in excruciating detail!²

How To Slip
First, when you slip a stitch, you need to insert the tip of the right needle into the stitch on the left tip. Then, you let the stitch slide over to the right needle. It’s slipped.

Did you slip knitwise or purlwise?

Well, there are two ways to insert the needle tip.

If you “knit western” (and if you are North American or Western European, you probably do ) then when you insert to knit a stitch you “insert through the front loop”.

Of course this is even more confusing than being told to “insert knitwise”, so I took a picture, shown left. You stick the needle tip in front to back through the stitch center. That’s inserting “knitwise”.

If you slide the stitch over to the right tip, you have “slipped knitwise”. Tah Dah!!!

The most common reason to slip knitwise is to work an “ssk” type decrease, which I illustrate in an article where I compare left leaning decreases.

Because the ssk decrease is common, beginners learn it before doing slip stitch patterns, and the abbreviation isn’t something like “skwskwk” some knitters come to believe slipping knitwise is “standard”.

It’s not. If you read the instructions for “ssk” they will tell you to “slip knitwise”. (Barbara Walker prints knitwise in italics!)

Ok, so that was the unusual way to slip. How do you slip purlwise? To slip purlwise, you insert the right tip “through the back loop”, or “purlwise”, as illustrated to the right. Notice the tip enters back to front and passes through the center of the stitch. If you “knit western”, you’ll notice this is the way things look before you wrap the yarn to purl a stitch. To slip, just let the stitch slide to the right needle.

That’s it. The difference between the two methods has to do with how you insert the needle before sliding the stitch. The reason for using one rather than the other has to do with how you want the stitch to “sit” on the needles.

Oh. Just incase you run across non-standard directions (and you will) knowing the reason for slipping knitwise or purlwise helps. If you try to follow directions, and stitches seem to end up seated incorrectly on the needle, or twist funny, try slipping the other way.

Yep. If you knit, it helps to know both how and why. That way you can correct bad patterns!

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1. Last night, I saw a male tv news reporter wearing a scarf knit using barred stripes pattern. It looked great! The stitch mixes knits and purls so it doesn’t curl. You could design your own and knit it quickly and easily!

2. When discussing slipping knitwise vs. purlwise, I will assume you knit Western not Eastern; since the overwhelming majority of North American and Western European knit “Western”. I don’t know the break down in other countries. “Eastern” vs “Western” is unrelated to the “Continental Hold” vs “American English Hold”. If you are interested in this term, read stockinette ad nauseum I.

3. (Added later.) I added this information based on Linda’s note below! (The great thing about blogs is people can provide extra information.)