How to Purl

Posted by: Chocololic Knits on: June 12, 2010

• In: Knitting Tutorials
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The second basic stitch used in knitting is called purling. It is basically the “opposite” of knitting: knitting is just pulling a row of loops through the previous row of loops, and whether you pull them through the front or the back of the row makes it “knitting” or “purling.”

Purling is not that different from knitting. After you have cast on and have your stitches ready to purl, you insert your second knitting needle through the first stitch from top to bottom instead of bottom to top. Like this:

Compared with knitting:

Then (just like the knit stitch) wrap the yarn around the needle.

And use the right-side needle pull the wrapped loop through the stitch on the left needle.

Then to finish the stitch, slide the stitch on the left needle up…

…and slide it off the end of the left needle.

Ta-dah! It doesn’t look like much yet, but after a few rows of purling it starts looking like a scarf ^_^.

What do you do next? You can read about how you can combine the basic knit and purl stitches.

Tags: how to purl, knitting, knitting tutorial