How to read Japanese knitting charts
Japanese stitch books and magazines put almost everything into the chart, with very little text. Once you understand it, you can read any of them.
How to do it
- The chart shows the fabric as it looks from the right side. One square is one stitch, one row of squares is one row.
- Read from the bottom up. Row numbers sit at the side: on the right for rows worked from the right side, on the left for rows worked from the wrong side.
- An empty square (or a vertical bar) is a knit stitch, a horizontal dash is a purl. That is how they look from the right side.
- Read right-side rows from right to left and work them as drawn.
- Read wrong-side rows from left to right and work the opposite: where a knit is drawn, purl; where a purl is drawn, knit. Decreases are mirrored too: “k2tog” becomes “p2tog” on the wrong side.
- In the round, every row is read from right to left and worked as drawn, because you always see the right side.
- A grey or shaded square means “no stitch”: just skip it. It only keeps the pattern aligned vertically when a row has fewer stitches.
- Small numbers 1, 2, 3… under complex symbols are the stitches on the left needle in the order they sit before you start the element: no. 1 is closest to the needle tip.
- A frame marks the repeat. Repeat it across as many times as needed; stitches outside the frame are worked once at the edges.
Tip
Bobbles, knots, wraps and twisted decreases almost always sit in right-side rows. In the wrong-side row above them, simply work the stitches as they appear.
If an element’s description says “looks like … from the right side”, go by the look, not by the name of the action.
Before you start, find the book’s symbol key: rare symbols can differ slightly between publications.
Common mistake
Reading a wrong-side row from right to left like a right-side row: the pattern mirrors and shifts by a few stitches.