While knitting green socks for Hunter Hammersen, there was a moment I fracking hated them. Not because the pattern is poorly written, but because I could NOT for the life of me remember the difference between a make one left and a make one right.

I see a \ on a chart and I immediately think ssk (you can draw an S out of a \). I see a / and immediately k2tog (you can draw a K out of a /, kind of).

I could not, for the life of me, see a y or a flipped y and think anything other than “crap, I have to look up the make ones again”…..and to be clear, I wasn’t having to look it up once a row. I was having to look it up for every. single. make one.

Finally, almost to the heel of the second sock I thought, “this is bat guano, there has to be a way to remember this” and I stopped knitting until I figured out the backwards y looks kind of like a B which tells me to pick up the ladder from the Back and knit through the front. (This is a M1R because the little line is off to the right.)


The y looks like a backwards F so I need to pick up the ladder from the Front and knit through the back. (This is a M1L because the little line is off to the left)

Then, I knit happily ever after.