Knitting pattern converter
Getting the tools ready…
Everything runs in your browser — the photo and the chart never leave it. Yarn colour data: Temperature Blanket · CC BY 4.0
Turns a photo into a chart for knitting, crochet or cross stitch. Give it your gauge and it works out the stitch count for the finished width, then remaps the photo's colours to the nearest shades in a real thread range.
Stitch count comes from gauge
Enter the finished width and how many stitches you get to 10cm, and the stitch count follows. The photo's pixel count has nothing to do with it — the same photo worked in thick yarn has fewer stitches and loses detail. If you do not know your gauge, start from the figure on the yarn label.
Matched to a thread range
Using the photo's own colours gives you something that looks good on screen and cannot be bought. Matching to the DMC range gives every colour in the chart a number you can take to a shop. Fewer colours means less thread to buy and easier work.
Checked for whether it can be worked
A single stitch of a different colour means changing yarn, working one stitch and changing back — which is miserable in practice. Those can be merged into the surrounding colour, and for knitting the length of yarn carried across the back is checked too.
Each technique has its own rules
Knitting offers intarsia, Fair Isle and mosaic; crochet offers graphgan, corner-to-corner and filet. Fair Isle allows two colours per row with a limit on float length; intarsia needs a separate bobbin for every colour area and warns beyond twelve; mosaic and filet are two colours only. Each chart comes with the result of a check on whether it can really be worked in that technique.
Yarn weight and needle size from your gauge
From 22 stitches to 10cm it tells you DK weight and 3.75 to 4.5mm needles, using the standard yarn weight scale from 0 to 7. Yarn colours vary by maker and cannot be matched, but thickness is an international standard and can be stated exactly. Knitted stitches are wider than they are tall, so the grid is corrected by that ratio to keep the finished shape true.
Written instructions and a row tracker
Besides the grid, each row is written out as text — red 5, white 3 and so on. A progress mode steps through one row at a time so you never lose your place, and the colour key lists the stitch count and yarn needed per colour. Large charts print across several sheets.
Common questions
Is my photo uploaded?
No. Reading the photo, choosing colours and drawing the chart all happen inside the browser, so pictures of your children or pets stay on this machine.
What kind of photo works best?
Large shapes against a simple background. A chart is ultimately a few colours of square, so thin branches and stray hair disappear. For a face, use a photo where the expression is large in frame.
How many colours should I use?
Four to six is a comfortable start. More colours track the photo more closely but cost more thread and mean more changes while you work.
Does cross stitch work?
Yes. Cross stitch squares are square, so it counts squares rather than using gauge. Knitting stitches are wider than they are tall, so that ratio has to go in for the finished shape to come out right.
Does it produce a crochet symbol chart?
Choose crochet and a symbol chart is generated too, which can be handed to the chart workbench for editing by hand. Cross stitch and knitting use the grid as their standard notation, so they have none.
Can I choose which part of the photo to use?
Drag a crop area over the photo. The subject has to fill the frame to be recognisable in the chart, and there is an option that picks the main subject automatically.