p — Purl (Abbreviation)
p stands for "purl" — the knit stitch's mirror image. The right needle goes in from the opposite direction a knit stitch uses, the yarn wraps the opposite way, and the new loop gets pulled back toward you rather than away. The resulting stitch shows a small horizontal bump on the side it's worked from, instead of knit's smooth V.
Why purling feels slower for most knitters at first
A purl stitch's insertion and wrap both run opposite to a knit stitch's, and the working yarn has to sit on the near side of the needle rather than the far side throughout — most knitters find this genuinely slower and less automatic than knit until real practice smooths it out, which is a normal learning curve, not a sign anything is being done wrong.
Where purl actually builds the fabric
Alternating rows of knit and purl is what produces plain stockinette — a knit row on the right side, a purl row on the wrong side — since purling the wrong-side row is mechanically necessary to keep the smooth knit face always pointing the same direction. Ribbing, seed stitch, and most textured patterns rely on purl stitches placed deliberately among knit stitches within a single row, not just alternated row by row.
Where it shows up in pattern shorthand
"p3" purls the next 3 stitches; "k2, p2" alternates 2 knit and 2 purl stitches to build 2x2 rib; "purl to end" purls every remaining stitch on the needle.
Related abbreviations
- k — knit, purl's mirror-image counterpart
- p2tog — purl 2 stitches together, a decrease worked with the purl motion instead of knit, used on wrong-side rows
FAQ
Is a purl stitch structurally different from a knit stitch, or just formed from the opposite side? Just the opposite side — a knit stitch viewed from its back is indistinguishable from a purl stitch viewed from its front; the two abbreviations describe which direction you're forming the loop, not two fundamentally different stitch structures.
Does continental knitting make purling significantly harder than English style? For many knitters, yes, at least initially — see continental versus English for why the continental style's purl motion specifically gives new knitters more trouble than its own knit motion does.