Tutorial – Twisted Stitches – Knit and Purl Through the Back Loop (ktbl, ptbl)

Most of the time in knitting, we want our stitches to lay flat and even. If they twist, it’s often a mistake. Sometimes though, we want to knit twisted stitches on purpose, as a textural element. To do this, we knit through the back loop (ktbl) or purl through the back loop (ptbl).

Twisted Stitches Photo Tutorial:

(scroll down for video tutorial)

Each stitch in knitting is a loop that sits on your needle. It has a right (front, or leading) leg, and a left (back) leg.

When on your needle, the right leg should be sitting in front, and the back leg in the back.

Normally, we knit and purl using the front leg of the stitch. For twisted stitches, we’re going to use the back leg. This makes the legs twist over each other, almost like a mini cable stitch.

With normal stitches (on the knit side), you can see a v shape that’s open at the bottom, and the legs do not cross. On the twisted stitch, you can see this v is closed at the bottom by the legs crossing over one another.

The common abbreviations refer to this as the back “loop”, but I usually think of it as the back “leg.” In this tutorial I will use the two words interchangeably.

Knit Through the Back Loop (ktbl):

In a normal knit stitch, we insert our needle from front to back through the front loop. You can see how this opens up the stitch, and the legs do not cross at the bottom.

For the twisted stitch, insert your needle from front to back through the back loop instead. The direction of the needle doesn’t change, only the loop you are putting it into. The working yarn should still be at the back like for a normal knit stitch.

Finish your stitch as you normally would for a knit. You can see as you do this that it pulls the back leg to the right and pushes the front leg to the left, twisting the stitch.

Purl Through the Back Loop (ptbl):

In a normal purl stitch, we insert our needle from back to front through the front loop.

For the twisted stitch, insert your needle from back to front through the back loop instead.  Again, the direction of the needle doesn’t change. Your working yarn should be in front, like a normal purl.

Finish your stitch as you normally would for a purl. This can be a little bit tighter than the ktbl stitch.Twisted purl stitches don’t look much different on the purl side than regular purl stitches. When you turn the work over though, you will see the twisted knit stitch on the other side.

Twisted Stitches Video Tutorial:

Ready to try it out? The Wouldn’t it be Rice blanket square uses this technique. Give it a try!