Letters
Pro Tip: Knitting Graph Paper
Dear Kay,
As I continue to scheme and dream about my two intarsia pillows, I’m thinking about drawing up a chart for part of my design.
To help make it easy to draw, I’m going to use knitting graph paper.
What is this witchcraft? Won’t ordinary graph paper do the trick?
Such good questions!
What It Is
Knitting graph paper has rectangles, not squares.
The challenge is that a knit stitch is wider than it is tall—not square—when working stockinette stitch, which is what intarsia typically uses. (Textured intarsia, lace intarsia, and cable intarsia will be the subject of Field Guide No. 304, at which points our heads will implode and that will be the end of us.)
This means that if you chart a design for intarsia using ordinary graph paper—drawing a circle, for example—the resulting knitting will look a bit wonky. A circle will knit up as if you pulled it on each side. An oval. An intarsia moose will look a bit flattened if the chart uses ordinary graph paper.
Ordinary graph paper. Knitting graph paper.
When I draw a circle on knitting graph paper, it will knit up as a circle.
With knitting graph paper, my moose antlers will be anatomically correct, not mooshed.
Knitting graph paper means you can easily draw a design as you want it to appear after you’ve knitted it.
How to Do This
Charting a graphic on knitting graph paper requires that you know what gauge you will be using for your knitting.
If I’m aiming for a moose using Felted Tweed, for example (and no, I’m not actually aiming for a moose but I hope somebody does), my gauge is 6 stitches per inch. If I want my moose to be 10 inches across, I multiply 10 inches x 6 stitches: my moose chart needs to be 60 stitches wide. That’s how many stitches I’ll need to have on my knitting graph paper. The height will depend on how tall those antlers will be and I honestly don’t know, given that I’m not actually doing this moose thing.
Thanks to Megan Goodacre of Tricksy Knitter for this downloadable knitting graph paper. (Megan’s site has all sorts of great patterns and tutorials, definitely worth a deep dive.)
And an internet search coughs up all manner of knitting graph paper, in different gauges and scales, should you really get into this whole idea and work up that manatee you’ve always wanted to knit.
Finally
I had a whole thing with circles and whatnot drawn up to show you how all this works, but Kermit has utterly defeated me and I just hope you’ll take my word that this knitting graph paper is really, really awesome.
Love,
Ann
PS Here’s another excellent way to turn a graphic into a knittable chart. Read this post about my odyssey to create a knitted sign for our first MDK headquarters using an amazingly clever app called Stitch Fiddle. Upload an image, set your gauge, and voila:
Your annoying cat is now a 16-color intarsia chart.
Hi All How is it cats always know exactly which sheet you are looking at …… ?
It’s incredible. It’s like he aims for it. He once spread out on my keyboard and deleted a whole product page from MDK. Bad surprise for sure.
I think he’s giving you a hint: Hey foodlady, I need to take this thing over for a day again already! Cats got lots to say! 🙂
You may also be interested in a recent publication by Vogue Knitting featured at the January VKL 2021: https://store.vogueknitting.com/p-5454-vogue-knitting-colorwork-paper.aspx The paper is refined to replicate actual stitches in two gauges. The advantages are articulated in the description and images provided on the website link above.
Very cool. I’m going to order. I used regular graph paper for my modified design. I never thought there was a special graph paper. It’s been a growth experience which I’ll post more on in Lounge.
Be safe and healthy all
Cheers
Sue
Very cool! The little V shapes do make a difference in how the knitting turns out.
Whoa! I knew about knitting graph paper, but that last bit with the photo! What possibilities!
And this is kind of off-topic (and I apologize) but if you’re working on *Sequence* patterns and having some trouble as I did, try charting out the patterns so you can see what your knitting is supposed to look like. It helps incredibly. For this, regular graph paper works. Since the repeats (at least in the Sequences Field Guide) are only 2 or 4 rows, the charts can be quite small.
Cecelia’s Knit Stars class works with charts for the sequences and it’s mind-blowing. I had so many a-ha moments and I came to it thinking I knew what I needed to know about Sequence Knitting. WRONG.
That’s a great idea, Ginny! So many of us are visual learners–I love a chart, anytime.
And yes, Stitch Fiddle is very cool–you can select however many colors you want to use, so if you want a 2-color design, the program will create a chart with that. If you want to increase the number of colors, it does that too. You can also set the number of stitches per inch, which is huge help. And once you’ve created the initial chart, you can swap out colors all day long.
I already knitted a Kaffe Fassett cushion in parallelogram shapes. I used his chart which I had no problem following. It is 11 colors of beauty, I do love it.
I am not a geometry person so, I wouldn’t create my own chart. However, my 8th grade math teacher, Ms. Mellis, taught me algebra complete with plotting points to create a picture.
I adore colorwork and an app to do this charting is good to know. That, I would do so, thank you.
Algebra! That’s so cool!
And congrats on your cushion. The parallelograms are so mesmerizing.
Try http://tata-tatao.to/knit/matrix/e-index.html to make your own in your chosen gauge.
Oh wow, that’s fantastic. I’m so grateful to these folks who create such clever apps.
Ann speaks the truth (not that anyone doubted her). I recently tried to make a peace sign and charted it on regular graph paper. Didn’t work so well. Abandoned first attempt and am now doing an I-chord version but not pulling that last stitch so tight because the back of the I-chord won’t show (I’m tacking it to a piece of denim). I hope to show it when I’m finished.
Knitting peace! That’s so perfect.
The worst is when they sit on what you are looking at and then scratch, or groom. As if they were perfectly innocent…
And as a retired veterinarian I can’t help noticing there’s quite a bit less of Kermit than there used to be. I’m hoping that is for his health, rather than because of it. Long may he reign!
Great news about Kermit! He looks younger with his weight loss as well. Fun to hear of his house panther exploits.
I agree. Glad to see you looking so lithe and lively, Kermit!
Thank you for noticing Kermit! He has definitely slimmed down a lot. At the beginning of last year, I changed up his diet because he was so portly that I was worried about him. I mean, I love a big baby but he was clearly not moving the way he used to. I stopped his Fromm dry food, and he’s on Weruva wet food now, and it’s like he’s a new cat. He goes sprinting through the house like the housepanther that he wants to be. He leaps and bounds from chair to chair. It’s really quite amazing, and I am so relieved to see him so much more active and lively.
That’s wonderful! I had a cat that quickly became portly, and when I changed foods she gradually got back to her zoomies-weight!
I love Kermit’s half-moustache. My tuxedo cat had almost the same: she also had white running up her back legs so I called her Go-Go. At a young age, she developed a localized tumor in one back leg that required an amputation. She recovered swiftly and lived long, but after the amputation, Go-Go became Po-Go. 😉
Kermit looks much thinner to me as well. I do hope he is feeling well.
Ann, you’ve stepped in it again! Annoying??!??! Kermit was only trying the graph paper (and the circle) on for size. Remember, “If it fits, I sits!”
Kermit thought: I AM BIGGR THAN THIS CIRCL
Please! Knit! Kermit!
Love these references. Saving article!
I know, right? He is such a two-color project! May need to fool around with that app some more.
I once made some sofa pillows to match a rug I love. I printed knitter’s graph paper onto transparency film, so I could trace motifs directly from the carpet. There’s a picture of the pillows on my ravelry project page. https://ravel.me/Pam/dk3zv0
I so love this idea so much. I have an Art Deco book and I have been trying to figure out how best to reproduce some of the designs. Thank you!!
OK that’s next-level stuff there, Pam–I would never have thought of transparency film. And yes, rugs are such a source of beautiful pattern. Your pillows turned out so well!
Thanks – That was 20 years ago — I was making it up as I went along 😉
Kermit looks more handsome than ever! Good move to get him off carbo-loaded dry food. I remember seeing the tata-tatao site quite a few years ago. It must have been one of the first knitters’ graph paper generators. I’ll investigate the others.
It looks like instead of graph paper for knitters it’s really graph paper for cats
I read “graph paper for kittens,” which I guess, in a sense, was right. A Kermit sighting always makes my day.
I laughed for 5 minutes at the head-will-explode comment (having been near head explosion multiple times). Haven’t checked out the link associated with Kermit yet, but if true what a great trick to annoy your friends. And freak out your enemies. If you can maintain the fiddliness of knitting what amounts to pixels long enough. (Kermit’s whiskers might be a challenge). Such an interesting post despite my so-called observations. A reminder of the versatility and breadth of possibility in this wonderful craft of knitting. And I’m looking really, really forward to Field Guide No. 304. (P.S. there is a charted peace symbol in Greetings from Knit Cafe by Susan Mischer, if anyone has access to that 2006 book. The chart has the circle elongated but the completed knitting is of a round circle as it should be.)
I think I’d embroider the whiskers on afterwards 😀
I was with you until the very end when you described Kermit using the word annoying. Take it back, Foodlady. You love it and you know it.
A knitting friend made a template Excel worksheet that works pretty well.
I’ve been using this for years. It’s FREE. And it comes in different sizes. Handy if you are knitting a lopi Icelandic sweater vs a finer FairIsle. https://www.laylock.org/blog/tag/printables/
Kermit looks great! And it sounds like he feels great, too. That’s a win! I love the Kermit chart, and while I wouldn’t knit a 16 color project, you could pare that down a bit, I’m sure. What a great pillow he’d make1
Thanks for the call out to Tricksy Knitter! full disclosure: no cats included with download 😉 Happy knitting!
My head may explode before the arrival of field guide no.304 lol. Thanks for this fun article Ann, you did have me chuckling. I appreciate the app tips too.
I just downloaded some of this last week! I love it!
Photos of Kermit remind me that we haven’t heard from him in a while. How about it, foodlady? 😉
KERMIT FLIP BOOK!!!! You made my day, Ann.
Kaffe Kermit kit, STAT!
Some of you might like the online source knitpro.com – you input your digital photo/graphic and it spits out a graph. Rectangles or squares (cross stitch, crochet, etc. are also represented) and regular, medium, big which gives different resolutions. It’s pretty fantastic. I throw them a couple bucks every now and then because I’d hate for the resource to disappear.
Sheesh. It’s microrevolt.org/knitpro
Warning! If you are graphing a Fair Isle design – one that alternates colors frequently & will be knitted in stranded knitting – it usually is better to use ‘regular’ graph paper because the rows elongate a little in stranded knitting, making the stitches square or close to square for most knitters!
Hi Anne, I’m going to try the app. Did you find Stitch Fiddle user friendly? I have Turkish motifs I’ve been dying to chart. An app makes it easier. Yes, Theo, my cat, always seems to know where to lie down to play whenever he wants my attention.
I use Excel or Google Sheets to make graph paper that suits my gauge—my rows are always shallower than those in the recommended gauge. I select a group of cells, e.g. 22 columns by 30 rows, and use the Border tool to draw crossing diagonals. I then Control A to select the whole sheet and adjust the row depth until the crossing angle is 90 degrees. Voilà, custom knitting graph paper.
This is great!Thanks for sharing!