When knitting or crocheting, there are many different ways of creating different pieces of art; we cannot deny that’s what they are!
They require a lot of concentration, manual skills and calculations, especially for those who create patterns, for their personal use or selling.
If you are the one using pre-written patterns, there are lots of abbreviations you may want to learn. Of course, there are thousands of them, but there are some basic ones that are enough for recreating many designs.
Let’s go ahead and see what knitting pm, sm, sc and many other abbreviations mean.
Knitting pm: place marker
What is pm in knitting?
The abbreviation PM stands for “place marker”. When crocheting or knitting in a circular pattern, for example when making amigurumis or one-piece sweaters, you may want to use a stitch marker.
When following a circular pattern, you have indications for every row. For this reason, you need to know when the row finishes.
Stitch markers for knitting are the go-to accessories for this. You can buy specific ones, that look like a plastic hook pin, or you can use, exactly, a hook pin.
You can also make your own stitch markers with earrings you can personalize with jewelry pieces. What we recommend is that stitch markers are clearly visible in the piece you are working on.
That is, the color should be different from the yarn or it could have shiny jewelry. If you need to buy some, we recommend getting red, white, and green stitch markers.
With these three options, you can make sure you’ll always have at least one color that is clearly visible in contrast with the rest of the textile.
Going back to the abbreviations, PM means “place marker”. This is the indication you can find on knitting or crochet instructions about where to put the stitch marker.
SM: slip marker
In combination with the knit PM abbreviation, there is another one that also refers to stitch markers.
This is “SM”.
You will find this abbreviation at the end of rows, and it marks the moment when you need to remove the marker and replace it to start the next row.
If you are going to use your own handmade marker, remember to use something like an earring that has an opening, as you need to remove and replace it constantly.
Otherwise, it will be caught in the fabric and you will have to unknit your piece to remove it.
SC: single crochet
Single crochet is the easiest stitch in this kind of crafting. You can make entire pieces with this single stitch.
Once you have created the foundation chain or a magic ring, poke through one of them and pull yarn through it once. You will have to hoops on your crochet.
Grab yarn again and pull it through both hoops. That’s a single crochet! This stitch is meant to be the shortest of all.
DC: double crochet
This stitch is one of the tallest, and that means it’s not as tense or firm as the single crochet.
The shorter, the tenser. The steps to this stitch are very similar to the single crochet, but it starts differently. Before poking the hook anywhere, wrap it with yarn once.
This will give you two hoops on your hook. Now, poke it through the foundation chain on the piece and pull some yarn through. That’s the only poking you will perform for this stitch. Now you have three hoops on your hook.
Grab some yarn and pull it only through the first two hoops and you will have two hoops left on your hook. Grab some yarn again and pull it through both hoops. Finished!
HDC: Half double crochet.
Yes, this stitch’s name is confusing. One would think that half a double crochet should be a single crochet. Surprise! It’s not.
They are two completely different things. This stitch is not as short as a single crochet and not as tall as a double crochet, so it’s quite firm still. However, it’s a little bulky so keep in mind the texture you want to achieve.
Despite the name being quite confusing, we have to admit that it’s quite useful for remembering how to do it, as we have to start exactly the same as when making a double crochet.
Before poking, grab some yarn. Then poke through, and pull some yarn out. Now, you will have the three hoops on your hook.
This is the point that makes a difference with the double crochet. Here, grab some yarn and pull it through the three left hoops on your hook. That’s it!
SL ST: slip stitch
This is the tiniest stitch in this list, but it is not usually used for the making of a piece but mostly for finishes. You can usually make a line of slip stitches on the borders of your textile to give it a nice neat finish.
As you could see before, the more steps, the taller the stitch, so this being the smallest on the list, has the least steps.
As its name says, you only need to slip the yarn! Poke through the foundation chain and pull yarn out and through the hoop on your hook with one single move.
There are also slip stitches in knitting, not only crochet, and there are two types. When knitting you can go knitwise, or purlwise.
Knitwise means poking your needle forward through the foundation chain, and purlwise means doing it backward.
Slip stitches can be knitwise or purlwise too. Slip stitch means poking through the foundation chain without working on it, but simply passing it on to the other needle, without working on it.
So here you have a bunch of the basic abbreviations you can find in knit and crochet patterns. You’ve seen knitting pm, sm, sc, dc, hdc and sl st for both knitting and crocheting.
I hope you found this useful! 🙂
I leave you a complete ‘crochet hook sizes conversion chart’ (click here) to know how to choose the right needle for your crochet proyects.