easy question

[KnittyDiane]

This may be an easy question, or not. I have a pattern it says,
(K1,P1) twice, K6. Now my question is I read this as K1,p1k1,p1,k6.Am I reading it right and if I am why write twice instead of k1,p1? I sometimes think pattern should be easier to interpret. Are they trying to confuse you, or is this some universal language that I just don't know yet? Thanks.

[thepurplegg]

Yes, that's what it means. When you see brackets like that and a number, it means to repeat what's in the brackets that many times. That's just a way to write patterns. If something is to be repeated 13 times, they'd rather put (pattern) x13 than write it 13 times. In this case, it might seem to have been easier to just write k1 p1 again but the author probably had a reason. :-)

[Marria]

Part of the reason they do it is because of real estate in books and magazines. Some knit patterns would be really long if they wrote out every word.

I think you'll find, though, that once you get used to reading pattern "language", it won't be so difficult. Especially if there are a lot of repeats. Taking from thepurpleegg's example--if it were (K1, P1) 13 times, it would be easy to get lost in 13 written out K1, P1 groups!