Free knitting chart maker: turn a photo into a colorwork chart
Turn a photo or picture into a knitting chart for intarsia or stranded colorwork, free and in your browser with nothing uploaded: enter your gauge and the finished width, and get a numbered chart with a symbol key, yarn estimates and a PDF.
Faster with the free Chrome extension: right-click any picture on a website and send it straight to the knitting chart maker. Add to Chrome · what it does
Extension installed. Right-click any picture on a website and choose Makerfern → Open this picture in… to bring it here.
A chart that knits to the right shape
Most picture-to-chart tools use square cells, so the finished knitting comes out shorter than the picture, squashed. This one starts from your gauge: the stitches and rows you get in 4 inches or 10 cm decide how many stitches span the width you want and how many rows the picture needs. The chart is drawn in the shape of your stitches (or as squares, your choice), and the preview shows the piece as knitted stitches at the same proportions. Colours come from the picture or from a palette of generic yarn names, and small specks are tidied away so a chart is something you can follow, with a control for how small a patch of one colour may be.
What you get
- The chart, as a PDF on US Letter or A4 and as a PNG: rows numbered from the bottom, right-side rows read right to left and numbered on the right, wrong-side rows read left to right and numbered on the left, stitches counted from the right edge (on screen, every row number is on the left with an arrow showing which way the row is read), symbols drawn as shapes so they stay readable in black and white, a bold line every 10, and pages that overlap by 3 stitches and rows when the chart is bigger than a page.
- The numbers a knitter needs: the stitch and row count, the finished size at your gauge, the colours with their stitch counts, and for intarsia the most colour sections in one row, or for stranded colorwork the longest float.
- A yarn estimate for each colour, in yards and metres, labelled as an estimate with its assumptions, which you can change.
- A chart PNG and a CSV of the grid, with row numbers, sides, directions and a colour key.
How to use it
- Drop a picture, paste one, or start from the sample. A drawing with solid colours charts best; a photo works with a lower colour limit.
- Enter the gauge from a washed swatch and the finished width. The height follows from the picture, and the status line shows the size in inches and centimetres.
- Choose intarsia or stranded, and look at the numbers under the colours: bobbins for intarsia, floats for stranded.
- Set the colour limit and the smallest patch until the chart is something you would knit, then look at it in the Chart view, in knitted shape and as squares.
- Download the PDF and print it at 100% (actual size), or save the PNG or CSV.
What it does not do
- It does not match yarn brands or shade names. Colours are generic names and hex codes.
- It does not write a pattern: no cast-on, shaping, edging or finishing. It is the colorwork chart for a rectangle.
- It assumes stockinette. Enter the gauge of the fabric you will knit; other stitch patterns change the shape of a stitch and how the colours show.
- Yarn amounts are estimates and cannot know your yarn, your needles or your tension.
Questions
Why does the chart not have square cells?
A knitted stitch is wider than it is tall: at 18 stitches and 24 rows over 4 inches, a stitch is 0.22 in wide and 0.17 in tall, so a picture charted at one stitch for each square cell knits up as wide as the picture but about a quarter shorter. The chart maker works from your gauge: it takes the stitches and rows you get in 4 inches (or 10 cm), works out how many stitches fit the finished width, and how many rows the same picture needs at your row height. The chart can be drawn in the stitch's own shape, so it looks like the knitting, or as squares like most printed charts; the finished size is the same either way.
What gauge should I enter?
Yours. Knit a swatch in the yarn and needles you will use, wash and dry it the way you will wash the finished piece, lay it flat and count the stitches and rows in 4 inches or 10 cm. The starting numbers, 18 stitches and 24 rows over 4 inches, are a common worsted-weight stockinette gauge and not a promise about any yarn. A different gauge changes the stitch count, the row count and the shape of the cells.
How do I read the chart?
Rows are numbered from the bottom. Worked back and forth, row 1 is a right-side row and is read from the right edge to the left; row 2 is a wrong-side row and is read from the left edge to the right, and so on. In the PDF and PNG, right-side rows are numbered on the right of the chart and wrong-side rows on the left, so the number is always beside the edge where the row starts; on screen every row number is on the left, with an arrow showing which way the row is read. Stitches are counted from the right edge, where row 1 starts. In stockinette the chart shows the right side, so on a wrong-side row work each stitch as a purl in the colour shown. Worked in the round, every row is a right-side row read from the right.
Intarsia or stranded?
Intarsia suits large blocks of colour: each colour section is worked from its own length of yarn or bobbin, and nothing is carried across the back. The tool counts the most colour sections in any one row, which is the number of bobbins you need at once. Stranded colorwork suits small repeats and details: you carry the colours you are not using across the back, and the tool counts the longest float, the number of stitches a colour is carried in one row. A common rule of thumb is to catch or avoid floats longer than about 5 stitches. A picture with a large plain background and a small subject has very long floats in stranded work, so it is a job for intarsia.
How is the yarn estimate worked out, and how good is it?
It is an estimate, and the page says so wherever it appears. Each stitch is taken to use 4 times its own width of yarn (a rule of thumb for stockinette that you can change under "Yarn estimate assumptions"), stranded work adds the colour carried across the back, and 15% is added for tails, joins and the swatch. The result is shown in yards and metres, rounded up. Yarn thickness, needle size and how tightly you knit all change the real number, so measure the yarn a swatch of your own uses and adjust the multiplier before you buy.
Does it give yarn brand colours?
No. The colours are either the picture's own or the nearest of about 60 generic yarn colours with plain names such as Cream, Denim and Forest green, each with a hex code. Yarn makers dye and name their own shades, and we have no colour values from the makers to match against, so any claim of a match would be a guess. Take the name and the hex code to your yarn shop and match by eye.
What does "smallest patch of one colour" do?
Photos turn into specks: single stitches of a slightly different colour, each of which would need its own bobbin in intarsia. Any patch of one colour smaller than the number you choose joins the neighbouring colour it shares the longest edge with. The default of 2 removes every single stitch; 1 keeps everything, including single stitches that are real details, such as a pupil in an eye, which you can add afterwards in duplicate stitch. The status line under the preview counts the single stitches left.
How many colours should I use?
Fewer than you think. Each colour is a yarn to buy and a bobbin or a carried strand to work; 4 to 8 suit a logo, a pet or a portrait. The limit is a ceiling: the tool may use fewer when the picture has fewer colours, or when two colours land on the same yarn name.
What can I download?
A chart PDF on US Letter or A4: a cover with the picture in the shape of your stitches, a map of the pages, the size and the estimates with their assumptions, the key, and then the chart in colour and in black and white with symbols. A big chart is split over several pages that repeat 3 stitches and rows from the next page, shaded, so they line up. A chart PNG with the numbers round the edge. And a CSV of the grid, one line per row with the row number, side and direction, and each cell a colour code, with the key under it.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The picture is read, charted and drawn in your browser and the files are saved from memory on your computer.