What a Yarn Over Does and When to Use It

A yarn over is a deliberate loop you create on your needle by wrapping yarn around it. It adds a new stitch to your needle without knitting or purling into an existing stitch. The result is a small hole in your fabric — which is exactly what you want when you are making lace patterns, eyelet buttonholes, or decorative openings.

The yarn over is one of the few stitches that increases your stitch count on its own. When you do a yarn over and then knit or purl the next stitch normally, you end up with one extra stitch on your needle. This is why yarn overs appear in patterns that need to add stitches without making the fabric bulky.

You will see yarn overs written as "YO" in knitting patterns. Some patterns use them purely for decoration — to create a lacy look — while others use them functionally, like when you need to make a hole for a drawstring or button.

Key Takeaways

  • A yarn over is made by wrapping yarn around your needle between stitches, creating a new loop without knitting into an existing stitch.
  • The position of the yarn over depends on whether the stitch before it was a knit or a purl, and what stitch comes after it.
  • Yarn overs always create a visible hole in your knitting, so they are not suitable for solid, hole-free fabric.
  • The most common yarn over is between a knit stitch and another knit stitch, where you straightforward bring yarn to the front, then knit the next stitch.

Yarn Over Between Two Knit Stitches

This is the most common yarn over you will encounter. After you knit a stitch, your yarn is naturally at the back of your work. To make the yarn over, bring the yarn forward between the needles to the front of your work, then knit the next stitch normally. The yarn wraps around the needle as you insert it, creating the loop.

The key is that the yarn ends up in front of the needle before you knit. When you knit the next stitch, the yarn automatically wraps around the right needle, and you have created your hole. On the next row, you will knit or purl that yarn over stitch just like any other stitch.

Yarn Over Between a Knit and a Purl Stitch

When the stitch after your yarn over is a purl, you need to bring the yarn to the front anyway (because purl stitches are worked from the front). So the yarn over is the same as above: bring yarn forward, then purl the next stitch. The yarn wraps around the needle as you insert it for the purl.

This is still one continuous motion — you are not wrapping the yarn separately. You are straightforward positioning the yarn in front before you work the next stitch.

Yarn Over Between a Purl and a Knit Stitch

After you purl a stitch, your yarn is already at the front of your work. To make the yarn over, bring the yarn to the back of the needle (over the top of the right needle), then knit the next stitch. The yarn wraps around as you knit, creating the loop.

Think of it as moving the yarn from front to back by going over the needle. You are not wrapping it around multiple times — just one pass over the needle to get it to the back, then you knit normally.

Yarn Over Between Two Purl Stitches

After you purl a stitch, your yarn is at the front. To make the yarn over before another purl, bring the yarn to the back of the needle (over the top), then bring it forward again to the front before you purl the next stitch. This creates a complete wrap around the needle.

This is the least common yarn over in most patterns, but it works the same way: position the yarn so it wraps around the needle once before you work the next stitch.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

The most frequent error is forgetting to move the yarn to the correct position before working the next stitch. If you are supposed to bring yarn forward but forget, you will accidentally decrease instead of creating a yarn over. The stitch will look tight and closed, not like a hole.

Another mistake is wrapping the yarn around the needle multiple times instead of once. A yarn over should create only one new loop. If you wrap twice, you will have extra loops on your needle that do not belong there, and your stitch count will be off.

Some knitters also accidentally drop the yarn over on the next row because they do not recognize it as a stitch. A yarn over looks like a loop on the needle, and it is — treat it exactly like any other stitch when you work the next row. Do not skip it or pull it tight.

Reading Yarn Overs in Patterns

Patterns write yarn overs as "YO" or sometimes "yo". In a sequence like "K2, YO, K2tog", you knit two stitches, do a yarn over, then knit two stitches together. The yarn over adds one stitch, and the K2tog (knit two together) decreases one stitch, so your stitch count stays the same.

Lace patterns use yarn overs paired with decreases to create the open, airy look. The yarn over makes the hole, and the decrease removes a stitch to keep the width consistent. Without the decrease, your fabric would get wider with each yarn over.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a yarn over always make a hole?

Yes. A yarn over creates a visible opening in your fabric. If your pattern calls for a yarn over, that hole is intentional. If you do not want holes in your knitting, do not use yarn overs — use other increase methods like a lifted increase or a make one.

What if I accidentally do a yarn over when the pattern does not call for it?

You will have an extra stitch on your needle and a hole where there should not be one. The easiest fix is to drop that extra stitch on the next row and let it run down one row, then pick it back up and find it. If you catch it when ready, you can also unknit back to the mistake and redo it.

Can I do a yarn over at the edge of my work?

Yarn overs work best in the middle of your fabric where the hole is surrounded by stitches. At the very edge, a yarn over can create a sloppy edge or make it hard to pick up stitches later. Most patterns avoid yarn overs in the first and last stitch of a row for this reason.

How do I know if my yarn over is too loose?

A yarn over should look like a small, neat hole, not a large gap. If the hole is much bigger than the surrounding stitches, your yarn over loop is too loose. On the next row, you can tighten it slightly by pulling the working yarn a little as you work that stitch, but do not pull so hard that you distort the surrounding stitches.