About KnitGraph and how it works

KnitGraph is a set of free tools for knitters and crocheters. Its main tool turns a picture or a word into a colorwork chart shaped to your gauge. The other tools cover graph paper, gauge, even increases and decreases, and two crochet chart makers. It is an independent project, and every tool works in your browser without an account.

What the site is for

Most charts are drawn on square cells, but stitches are not square. A knitted stitch is wider than it is tall, so a design drawn on a square grid comes out squashed. KnitGraph draws cells in the same shape as your stitches, so what you see on the chart is closer to what you will make. You can start on the knitting chart maker and move to the other tools from there.

How the chart maker works

Each step is simple enough to check by hand.

• Rows. The number of rows is stitches wide × picture height ÷ picture width × row gauge ÷ stitch gauge. A picture 400 pixels wide and 300 high, charted 40 stitches wide at 20 stitches and 28 rows per 4 in, gets 40 × 300 ÷ 400 × 28 ÷ 20 = 42 rows.
• Colors. The picture is reduced to the number of colors you choose by clustering similar colors in a perceptual color space, which is a color model where distances roughly match what the eye sees.
• Tidying. Stray single stitches are merged into neighboring stitches. You choose how strongly this is applied, and you can turn it off.
• Float rule. The stranded knitting chart flags any run where a color goes unused for more than the chosen number of stitches. The default is 5.
• Yarn estimate. The estimate is about 4.5 × stitch width per knitted stitch plus about 1.1 × stitch width per floated stitch. It is a rough figure, not a measurement.

What it does not do

KnitGraph does not know your yarn, your hands or your tension. Every size and yarn figure is an estimate. Make a swatch before you start, measure it, and enter the gauge you actually get. The tools do not replace a finished pattern: they draw the chart and write the rows, and you decide how to use them. Charts made from pictures are only as good as the picture, so simple shapes work best.

Contact

Questions, corrections and suggestions are welcome at hello@knitgraph.com. See the privacy page for how your data is handled and the terms of use for what you can do with your charts.