A 5 mm grid that measures 5 mm
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Notes & writing
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— mm
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Prints a measured strip. If a ruler disagrees with it, your printer is scaling the page.
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1:1 detail · 62 × 40 mm
Drawn in real millimeters. Hold a ruler to the screen — if it disagrees, your display's reported DPI is wrong, not the PDF.
Printable knitter's graph paper, to exact spec
A knitted stitch is wider than it is tall — roughly 5 stitches to 7 rows per inch in stockinette. So a cell on knitting graph paper should be about 5:7, not square.
This matters more than it sounds. Chart a circle on square graph paper, knit it, and what comes off the needles is an oval at about 70% height. Lettering compresses. Anything with a shape you'd recognize — a heart, a snowflake, a fair isle motif — comes out wrong, and it isn't fixable after the fact.
The cells here are proportional, with a heavier line every ten to count against. Set the stitch width and the row height follows. If your own gauge sits a long way from 5:7, swatch first and adjust the spacing until one cell matches one real stitch.
5:7 is an average
The 5:7 figure comes from a common stockinette gauge in worsted-weight yarn, roughly 5 stitches and 7 rows to the inch.
Gauge depends on the yarn, the needle size, the stitch pattern and the knitter. Two people working the same yarn on the same needles often get different gauges.
Knit a swatch at least four inches across in the pattern you will use, wash and block it the way the finished piece will be treated, then count stitches and rows over four inches in the middle. Divide rows per inch by stitches per inch. Near 1.4 and the default charts accurately. At 1.2 or 1.6, set the spacing so one cell matches one stitch.
Reading a chart
Charts are read from the bottom up, the direction the fabric grows.
Right-side rows read right to left. Wrong-side rows read left to right. Working flat you alternate between the two; working in the round every row reads right to left.
That reversal is where asymmetric motifs go wrong. A letter or a number can knit up mirrored while the chart looks correct.
When square paper is fine
Stranded colorwork, intarsia and duplicate stitch all chart a picture, so proportional cells matter.
Lace charts use symbols for operations rather than colors and are read as instructions, so published lace charts are almost always square. Cable charts show crossings, and compressing them makes the symbols harder to read.
Row gauge also drifts more than stitch gauge, with tension and with blocking. For a motif that has to end where shaping starts, count rows in the piece rather than trusting the chart.
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't it square?
Knitted stitches are wider than they are tall, roughly 5:7. Chart on square paper and your design knits up squashed.
Does it match my gauge?
It uses 5:7, a decent approximation for stockinette. Knit a swatch and check — if you're far off, the chart will still drift.
Same as cross-stitch paper?
No. Cross stitch is square. Using square paper for knitting is the mistake this page exists to fix.