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Why knitting charts come out stretched, and how gauge fixes it

6 min read
Hands knitting a beige garment beside a magazine and a cup
Photo by Rebecca Grant on Unsplash

The short answer

Knitting charts come out stretched because a stockinette stitch is wider than it is tall. At a common gauge of 20 stitches and 28 rows to 10 cm, each stitch is about 1.4 times as wide as it is high, so a picture charted on square cells knits up about 40% taller. The fix is to chart on cells shaped by your gauge, which adds rows so the finished motif keeps its proportions.

Make a knitting chart

You chart a heart, a letter or your dog’s face on a neat square grid. You knit it carefully. It comes out tall and thin. You did nothing wrong. The chart did: it assumed knit stitches are square, and they are not.

Knit stitches are wider than they are tall

Look at a gauge label. A common worsted gauge is 20 stitches and 28 rows to 10 cm. That means:

  • one stitch is 10 ÷ 20 = 0.5 cm wide
  • one row is 10 ÷ 28 = about 0.36 cm tall

So each stitch is about 1.4 times as wide as it is tall. Knit a chart drawn on square cells, and every row is shorter than the chart promised. To reach the same height you need 1.4 times as many rows, and if you only knit the rows on the chart, the picture is squashed. Put another way, a motif that looks square on square paper needs about 40% more rows than stitches to look square in knitting.

The same thing happens in crochet, less strongly. Single crochet at 15 stitches and 17 rows to 10 cm is only a little wider than it is tall. C2C tiles are close to square, which is one reason C2C suits photo blankets.

Three ways to fix it

1. Knitter’s graph paper. Printed with rectangular cells at a stated gauge. It works if the paper’s gauge matches yours.

2. Stretch the picture before you chart it. Make the image about 40% taller, chart it on square cells, and it knits back to the right shape. This works, but the chart looks wrong while you knit, which makes mistakes harder to spot.

3. Chart to your gauge. Enter your stitches and rows per 10 cm, and let the chart use cells of that shape. The chart then looks like the finished knitting, and the extra rows are added for you.

The knitting chart maker does the third. It shapes each cell by your stitch and row gauge, adds the rows the picture needs, and shows the chart in true proportions. It also writes every row out in words, marks right side and wrong side, and estimates the yarn for each colour. The photo stays in your browser and is never uploaded.

Measure your own gauge

Gauge on a ball band is a starting point, not your gauge. Knit a swatch at least 15 cm square in the stitch you will use, with the same needles. Wash and dry it the way you will treat the finished piece. Then count the stitches and rows across 10 cm in the middle, away from the edges.

Colourwork changes gauge. Stranded knitting is usually tighter than plain stockinette, and the floats pull the fabric in. Swatch in colourwork if the piece is mostly colourwork.

Stranded or intarsia?

Stranded (fair isle) Intarsia
Colours per row Two, sometimes three As many as you need
Colour runs Short, a few stitches Long blocks
The unused yarn Carried along the back as floats Separate bobbins, no floats
Suits Patterns, borders, hats in the round Portraits, large motifs, sweater fronts

For a photo, intarsia is usually the answer, because a photo has large areas of one colour and more colours than stranded knitting handles well. Reduce the colours to two or three and the same tool gives you a chart that suits stranded work, with the runs visible so you can check float lengths.

The yarn estimate in the tool assumes plain stockinette. Stranded work uses more, because the floats carry yarn behind every stitch.

Reading the chart

Knitting charts are read from the bottom up. Knitting flat, right-side rows go right to left and wrong-side rows left to right. In the round, every row goes right to left. The written rows mark RS and WS and the direction on each row, so you do not have to track it.

Crocheters have the same problem with single-crochet graphghans, covered in turning a photo into a crochet pattern. For C2C blankets, see how to read a C2C graph. To keep your place on a long chart, the row counter remembers your count on your device.

  • Knitting
  • Craft

Questions people ask

Why does my knitted picture look tall and thin?

Because it was charted on square cells and knit stitches are not square. At 20 stitches and 28 rows to 10 cm, a stitch is about 1.4 times as wide as it is tall, so the picture grows about 40% taller than the chart.

How do I chart for my gauge?

Knit a swatch, count stitches and rows over 10 cm, and chart on cells with that width-to-height ratio, or on knitter's graph paper made for your gauge. The Spolvero knitting chart maker shapes the cells by the gauge you enter.

Should I use stranded or intarsia for a photo?

Stranded (fair isle) suits two or three colours per row with short runs. Large blocks of colour and many colours suit intarsia, where each area has its own yarn. A photo portrait is usually intarsia.

How do I read a knitting chart?

From the bottom up. Knitting flat, right-side rows are read right to left and wrong-side rows left to right. In the round, every row is read right to left.

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