How to read a knitting chart

What a chart shows

Each square on a knitting chart is one stitch, and each horizontal line of squares is one row (or one round, if you knit in the round). The chart is a picture of the fabric as you see it from the right side, the side that faces out when the piece is finished. Row 1 sits at the bottom, because it's the first row of the chart you knit, and the chart grows upward the same way your knitting does.

Charts come in two broad kinds. Colorwork charts fill each square with a color or a color symbol, and the stitches are usually all plain stockinette. Stitch-pattern charts use symbols for knits, purls, yarn overs, decreases and cables, and they may be all one color. Plenty of patterns mix the two, so read the key before assuming which kind you have.

If you're still getting comfortable with knit and purl, the knitting for beginners page covers those first.

Reading a chart when you knit flat

When you knit back and forth, you usually start at the bottom right corner of the chart.

• Right-side rows are read from right to left.
• Wrong-side rows are read from left to right.

This matches what your needles are doing. On a right-side row you work across the fabric from right to left as you look at it. Then you turn the work over, and the first stitch on your needle is the one at the left end of the chart row.

The row numbers tell you where to start. Most flat charts put the right-side row numbers on the right edge and the wrong-side row numbers on the left edge, so the number sits at the end where that row begins. Right-side rows are usually the odd ones, but not always. Some patterns start with a wrong-side row, so check what row 1 is before you cast on.

Wrong-side rows flip the symbols

Because the chart shows the right side, a symbol on a wrong-side row tells you what the stitch should look like from the front, not what to do on the back. In the most common convention, a blank square means knit on a right-side row and purl on a wrong-side row. A dot means the opposite: purl on the right side, knit on the wrong side.

Take a 2 x 2 rib chart: two blank squares, then two dots, repeated. On the right side you knit two, purl two. On the wrong side you work the same squares from left to right and do the reverse, so the knits stay knits on the front. The key usually spells this out, with something like "k on RS, p on WS".

For colorwork knit flat, the wrong-side rows are simpler. You purl every stitch in the color the chart shows, reading from left to right.

Charts that leave out wrong-side rows

If the row numbers go 1, 3, 5, 7, only the right-side rows are drawn. The pattern text will tell you what to do on the rows in between, often something like "purl all WS rows" or "work stitches as they appear". It's easy to forget them, so make a note on your copy.

Reading a chart in the round

In the round you never turn the work. Every round is a right-side round, so every row of the chart is read from right to left, starting again at the right edge each time you pass the beginning-of-round marker. Charts written for circular knitting usually have numbers only down the right side, and the key only gives right-side meanings.

This is one reason stranded colorwork is so often knit in the round. You always see the pattern facing you, and you never have to read a colorwork row backward.

The key

The key (some patterns call it the legend) defines every symbol on the chart. Symbols aren't fully standardized. The Craft Yarn Council publishes a standard set, and many designers use it, but the council itself says to always check the pattern key, especially for cables, where versions differ a lot.

Some conventions you'll see often:

For colorwork, the key matches each color or symbol to a yarn, often labeled MC for main color and CC for contrast colors. Write the actual yarn color names next to them before you start. "CC2" is hard to remember at row 40.

Repeats

A repeat box is a heavier or colored outline around a group of stitches. You work the stitches inside it again and again across the row, then work any stitches outside the box once. Those outside stitches are usually edge stitches that balance the pattern.

Say a chart has an 8-stitch repeat plus 1 extra stitch at the left edge, and you have 41 stitches. That's 5 repeats of 8 stitches (40) and then the single edge stitch. A stitch marker between each repeat makes mistakes much easier to spot, because each section between markers should look the same.

Repeats can be vertical too. A pattern might say to work rows 1 to 12 four times, then continue with row 13.

No-stitch squares

Lace charts sometimes have shaded squares marked "no stitch". They stand in for stitches that don't exist on that row, usually because a decrease removed one or an increase hasn't made it yet, and they keep the columns lined up. Skip them completely. Work the stitch before the shaded square, then go straight to the stitch after it.

Why the squares aren't the shape of your stitches

A stockinette stitch is wider than it is tall. Take a common worsted gauge of 18 stitches and 24 rows to 4 inches. Each stitch is about 0.22 inch wide but only about 0.17 inch tall, roughly a third wider than it is tall.

That matters for any chart drawn on square graph paper. A motif charted as 24 stitches by 24 rows looks square on paper, but at that gauge it knits up about 5.3 inches wide and 4 inches tall. To get a true square you'd need about 32 rows. Circles come out as ovals, faces look wide, and lettering looks squat.

Many published charts use square grids anyway. For an allover pattern of small motifs you'll rarely notice. For a picture, a portrait or text, chart on paper that matches your stitches. Craft Studio's knitting graph paper is free and needs no account. It sizes the cells to your stitch and row gauge and numbers the grid from the bottom right, the way you read a chart. You need a real gauge to enter, so knit a swatch at least 6 inches square in the yarn and stitch you'll use, and count stitches and rows over 4 inches. The gauge calculator then tells you how big a finished chart will be.

If you're starting from a photo instead of a blank grid, the photo to knitting chart converter draws cells about a third wider than tall for the same reason.

Keeping your place

A few habits that help:

• Print the chart and enlarge it. Squares that look fine on a screen can be tiny on paper.
• Put a ruler, a strip of sticky note or highlighter tape just above the row you're working, not below it. You can then compare your knitting with the rows you've already done.
• Check off each row as you finish it, and write the row number on a sticky note if you put the work down mid-row.
• Every few rows, hold the knitting up next to the chart. Since the chart is a picture of the right side, the two should match.

For colorwork in particular, the guide to Fair Isle and intarsia explains how to handle the yarn once you know which squares get which color, and the knitting colorwork page covers charting your own designs, with cells shaped like stockinette stitches.