Free knitting & crochet tools

Knitting Gauge Calculator

Measure your swatch, and this works out how many stitches to cast on (or chain) for the width you want, how many rows to work, and what to do when a pattern's gauge doesn't match yours. Works for crochet too.

How to measure gauge

Work a swatch at least 6 inches square in the stitch pattern the project uses, with the yarn and needles or hook you'll actually use. Wash and block it the way you'll treat the finished piece; wool relaxes and cotton grows, and a gauge taken off the needles is the one measurement guaranteed to be wrong later. Lay it flat without stretching, and count stitches and rows across the middle 4 inches, away from the edges. Half stitches count: 18.5 stitches over 4 inches is a real gauge.

The calculator divides your count by the measurement to get stitches per inch, multiplies by the width you want, and rounds. If your stitch pattern repeats over a set number of stitches, enter the repeat and any balancing stitches ("multiple of 4 + 2") and it rounds to the nearest count that fits, then tells you the real width you'll get.

When your gauge doesn't match the pattern

More stitches per inch than the pattern means your stitches are smaller, so the piece will come out narrower. Go up a needle or hook size and swatch again. Fewer stitches per inch means bigger stitches and a bigger piece: go down a size. One needle size changes gauge by roughly one stitch per 4 inches for most yarns, so two sizes off usually means a different yarn weight, not a different needle.

If you'd rather keep your needles and your fabric, the second calculator scales the stitch counts instead. It multiplies every count in the pattern by your gauge divided by the pattern's gauge. That works well for blankets, scarves and simple shapes; for garments with shaping, colorwork charts or set stitch repeats it gets messy fast, and matching gauge is the better fix.

Row gauge

Row gauge matters less than stitch gauge for most projects, because lengths are usually worked "until the piece measures" rather than to a row count. It matters a lot for anything worked sideways, for raglan and yoke shaping written as "every 4th row", and for stitch patterns that need a whole number of vertical repeats. If your row gauge is off but your stitch gauge is right, keep the needles and adjust the row counts with the same ratio.

Crochet gauge

Everything above applies to crochet, with two differences. Count stitches across the top of a row, not the loops, and add the turning chain to the foundation: one extra chain for single crochet, two for half double, three for double crochet. Crochet fabric is also more sensitive to hook size than knitting is to needle size, so a half-millimetre change in hook is often enough to fix gauge.