Drawing Your Design

Drawing your design

Proportional graph paper

Most stitches are not square!

In a tension square of stocking stitch where the length and width is the same, you will have more rows than stitches. Typically this stitch ratio will be between 1.3 and 1.4 so the stitch is wider than it is tall. Other stitch patterns produce different ratios.

This is why proportional graph paper is useful since you can exactly draw to scale the stitch you want to use. This means you can calculate shaping or the design of a motif or intarsia exactly so it does not distort when you knit it.

Proportional graph paper can be purchased in standard sizes or you can download a simple programme from the internet , for example Print-A-Grid from Knitting Software Inc