I say cast on you say ….

Being a bit of a cheapskate I often trawl the internet for free knitting patterns, this can mean that I often use patterns from different countries. This may not sound like much until you consider the fact that even a simple things like cast on and needle size are different from the UK. I was going to title this blog post “you say tomato, and I say tomato” but the song doesn’t work when you write the lyrics.

 One which caught me for a moment the first time I read it was BO, no it isn’t a comment about your hygiene habits it means Bind off. The UK equivalent is Cast off, but as American patterns use CO to mean cast on you can see why the difference is needed.

You may (or may not)  also be glad to hear that KFB isn’t a typo for KFC it means knit into the front and back of the stitch or Inc. for those who like to increase the stitches we are knitting.

Even the name or description of the wool requires a British/American dictionary. The most popular wool in the patterns I use is Double knit (DK for short) is referred to as Light Worsted or 8 ply. Many of the American patterns I use prefer Worsted which we would call Arran.

As if it wasn’t bad enough the UK patterns may use metric or number sizes for their needles, the US patterns have their own numbers which do differ from those of the UK. A US size 10 needle is 6mm, while the UK size 10 needle is 3.25mm, this could catch a few people out if they have downloaded a pattern without a picture or any tension guide. An easy (ish) way to convert the US/UK needle numbers is to remember that both have the same size for number 7 (4.5mm), where the UK numbers get smaller for larger needles (I never understood why) the US numbers get higher for wider needles. This is not a fool proof process as for some reason the UK needles don’t have a number for 3.5mm and the US sizes seem to skip both 7 and 7.5mm. Needle conversion charts are easy to find through Google search so I haven’t put one on the blog.