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Crochet slang and terms: frogging, WIP, yarn chicken and more

Crocheters have their own words: frogging is pulling out your work (“rip it, rip it”), a WIP is a work in progress, and yarn chicken is racing to finish a row before the ball runs out. Here are the ones you will meet in patterns and forums.

US terms

The words you will hear

The words you will hear
Word	What it means
Frogging	Pulling out stitches to undo work, from “rip it, rip it”
Tinking	Undoing one stitch at a time; “knit” spelled backwards, borrowed from knitters
WIP	A work in progress
UFO	An unfinished object, put aside for a long time
FO	A finished object
Stash	Your collection of yarn
Yarn chicken	Racing to finish a row or a project before the yarn runs out
Yarn barf	The tangle that comes out when you pull from the center of a ball
Yarn cake	A flat-topped ball wound on a winder, pulled from the center
CAL	A crochet-along: many people making the same pattern on a schedule
LYS	Your local yarn shop
Frogged	A project that was undone completely
Granny stripe	Rows of three-double-crochet clusters, like a granny square in rows
Blocking	Wetting or steaming finished work and pinning it to shape
Gauge or tension	How many stitches and rows fit in 10 cm

Abbreviations are different

Slang is how crocheters talk; abbreviations are how patterns are written. For sc, dc, sk, rep and the rest, see the abbreviation chart, which also shows what UK patterns write instead.