Free knitting chart maker
Knitting chart maker.
Make a stranded colourwork or intarsia chart from a photo, or draw one on a grid that knows a knitted stitch is wider than it is tall. Free written row instructions, a printable chart, and a row tracker.
The thing square graph paper gets wrong
A knitted stitch is not a square.
Stockinette runs about 5 stitches to 6.5 rows per inch. Draw a circle on square graph paper, knit it, and you get an oval about a quarter shorter than you drew — which is why so many charted motifs look subtly wrong on the finished garment. Charts made here are proportioned to knitting gauge, so the shape on screen is the shape on the yoke. Borrow a chart from a cross-stitch or crochet tool and it will squash, because those crafts really do have near-square cells.
Honest limits
Two colours a row, and short floats.
Stranded knitting carries two yarns at once, and that is a limit of hands rather than software. Anything needing three colours in one row is intarsia — a separate bobbin per block, no floats, fine for large solid shapes and miserable for scattered detail. Long floats snag: past about five stitches they want catching, past an inch they catch fingers and rings. So generate knitting charts with fewer colours than feels right — four makes a knittable yoke where twelve makes a chart nobody finishes.
Colourwork questions
Asked constantly, answered once.
- Why does my knitting chart look squashed when I knit it?
- Because a knitted stitch is not square. Stockinette runs roughly 5 stitches to 6.5 rows per inch, so a chart drawn on square graph paper comes out about 25% shorter than it looked on screen — circles become ovals and faces get wide. Charts made here are generated against a knitting gauge rather than a square one, so what you see is the proportion you will get. If you take a chart from a cross-stitch or crochet tool, expect it to squash.
- How many colours can I use in a row of stranded knitting?
- Two. That is not a software limit, it is what your hands can carry — stranded colourwork means holding two yarns and floating the unused one behind the work. If a row needs three or more colours it has to be intarsia, with a separate bobbin per block and no floats, which suits large solid shapes and not scattered detail. Generate with a low colour count and check each row before you commit.
- How long can a float be?
- About five stitches before it needs catching, and about an inch before it snags on fingers and rings when the garment is worn. A chart with long single-colour runs interrupted by one contrast stitch will knit up badly however good it looks on screen. Simplify those rows in the editor before you cast on.
- Can I turn a photo into a knitting chart?
- Yes — upload it, choose Knit colorwork, and pick a stitch count for the width. Be more ruthless with colour count than you would for crochet: a photograph reduced to four colours makes a knittable yoke, and the same photograph at twelve colours makes a chart nobody can knit without a bobbin for every square inch.
- Do I get written instructions as well as the chart?
- Yes. Every row comes out as the colour runs in working order, alternating right-side and wrong-side rows, so you can follow the words if you lose your place in the grid. There is also a printable numbered chart and a row tracker.
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