How to Count Rounds When Knitting in the Round

The hat pattern says “knit 40 rounds”. Somewhere past the twentieth you look up from the television and can’t say whether the marker has gone by once or twice since you last counted. Flat knitting at least gives you an edge to turn at. In the round, the stitches just keep coming. This guide shows how to count rounds in three ways that check each other: at a marker while you knit, with checkpoints left in the fabric, and by reading the finished rounds afterwards.

Why rounds are harder to count than rows

When you knit back and forth, every row ends at an edge, and turning the work is a natural moment to count. In the round there’s no edge and no turn. What you’re making is a spiral: the last stitch of one round sits beside the first stitch of the next, one step higher.

A round is one full trip from the place where the round begins back to that same place, however many needles the stitches are spread over. So counting rounds takes two things: something that shows where the round begins, and the habit of counting each time you pass it.

Mark the beginning of the round

Patterns call it the beginning-of-round marker, often shortened to BOR. Everything else in this guide depends on it.

On a circular needle

After casting on, slip a ring marker onto the right needle tip, then knit the first stitch to join. The marker now sits between the last stitch of the round and the first, and it stays there: each time you reach it, slip it from the left tip to the right and keep going. If the pattern uses other markers, for raglan lines or pattern repeats, make this one a different colour, so that there’s only one marker you count at.

On double-pointed needles

A ring marker at the very end of a double-pointed needle slides straight off. Three things work instead:

• Move the start of the round. Slip a stitch or two from one needle to the next, so that the round begins a couple of stitches into a needle, and put a ring marker there.
• Mark the fabric. Clip a locking marker into the first stitch of the round, a little below the needles, and move it up every so often.
• Follow the tail. The cast-on tail hangs at the join, which is where the round begins. It’s a fine guide for the first few centimetres, until the work is long enough that a marker is easier to see.

In magic loop

With magic loop, the stitches are split into two halves on one long circular needle, and the spare cable sticks out in loops at the sides. A round is both halves: work the stitches on the front needle, turn the work, and work the other half. A ring marker won’t stay at the start of a needle here either, so let the cast-on tail or a locking marker in the fabric show you which half begins the round, and count only when you get back to it. Counting each time you turn the work is the classic magic-loop mistake: it turns 30 rounds into 60.

How to count rounds as you knit

Count at the marker, every time, and at no other moment. Slip the marker, add one. The round you’re counting is the one you’ve just finished. Put it off for half a round, and you’ll no longer be sure whether you counted.

What you add one to is up to you:

• Tally marks on paper: one stroke a round, bundled in fives.
• A clicker or a ring counter, pressed as you slip the marker.
• A counting chain: a short chain of numbered rings that sits on the needle in place of the beginning-of-round marker. Each time you come to it, you move the needle tip into the next ring, so the ring on your needle shows the count. Most chains run to 10 and then start again.
• A row counter app on your phone or watch, tapped as you pass the marker. Rowpip, the one we make, asks whether your project is flat or in the round; the answer changes only the label over the number, from “Row” to “Round”. More about that on the page for a counter for knitting in the round.

When something happens every few rounds

Shaping in the round is written as “decrease every 4th round” or “increase every 8th round”, which asks you to keep two numbers: how many rounds since you last shaped, and how many times you’ve shaped so far. Keep the total on your counter and let the fabric hold the other one, by pinning a marker to every shaping round when you knit it.

The crown of a hat is kinder. When the decreases come every other round, look at one of the decrease points. If the two stitches that were knitted together sit directly under the loop on the needle, the round you’ve just finished was a decrease round, and the next one is plain. If there’s a plain stitch between them and the needle, the plain round is done too.

Checkpoints you can count from

Counters get bumped and tallies get forgotten. A marker clipped into a stitch stays where it is, so give yourself places to count from.

• A locking marker every 10 rounds. When you finish round 10, clip a locking marker into one of the stitches on the needle, a few stitches after the beginning of the round. Do the same at 20, 30 and 40. A recount then begins at the last marker, never at the cast-on.
• A running thread. Cut a strand of smooth waste yarn a little longer than the piece will be. Before you begin a round, lay it between the needle tips at the marker, with a short end inside the work and the long end hanging down the outside. Every 5 rounds, as you pass the marker, flip the long end between the needle tips to the other side of the work: outside to inside, then inside to outside. The thread weaves up through the knitting as a dashed line, and every dash, on either face, spans 5 rounds. With 3 dashes on the outside and 2 on the inside, you’ve knitted 25 rounds since you laid it in.

More ways to use markers, and lifelines to rip back to, are in the guide to stitch markers and lifelines.

Counting rounds in the fabric

When there’s no count to trust, read the rounds back from the knitting. Stockinette in the round is knit on every round, so the smooth side with its columns of Vs is always on the outside, facing you. Each V in a column is one round.

1. Knit to the marker first. Halfway through a round, the columns you’ve already worked are one stitch taller than the ones still waiting, and the answer depends on where you look.
2. Pick a column a few stitches away from the marker. The step where one round ends and the next begins, called the jog, pulls the stitches there out of line.
3. Start at the bottom, and skip the cast-on. With a long-tail cast-on, the lowest V in each column, the one resting on the edge itself, was made by the cast-on. Round 1 is the V above it.
4. Count up the column, one V for each round. The top V hangs from the needle: the loops on the needle are the round you’ve just finished, so that V is in the count, once.

If the piece starts with ribbing, follow one of its knit columns upwards; the Vs there are rounds too. And don’t count to 60 in ones. Count in fives, and park a locking marker at every 10th or 20th V, so that an interruption costs you a few stitches and not the whole column.

The guide to reading your knitting in garter and stockinette looks at the Vs, the bumps and the cast-on more closely.

Garter stitch in the round

Garter stitch in the round is knit one round, purl one round. Each purl round leaves a ridge on the outside and each knit round a groove, so a ridge and the groove beside it make two rounds. Twice the number of ridges on the outside is your count, give or take one round.

For the exact number, look inside as well. A knit round is a ridge on the inside, so every ridge, inside or out, is one round: add up the ridges of the two faces. A garter brim with 6 ridges outside and 5 inside is 11 rounds. The cast-on edge can pass for one more ridge, and it isn’t one.

When a tape measure will do

Round gauge turns rounds into length. At 32 rounds to 10 cm (4 in), “knit until the leg measures 15 cm” comes to 48 rounds. Measuring is fine for one hat. For things that come in pairs, count: write down that the first sock’s leg was 48 rounds, and knit 48 on the second. Knitted fabric stretches, and two measurements of “15 cm” can easily be three rounds apart.

If you lose count in the middle of a round

1. Knit to the marker. Don’t knit on with a guess.
2. Look for the closest checkpoint below your needles: a locking marker, the running thread, the last shaping round, the top of the ribbing or, failing all of those, the cast-on edge.
3. Count the Vs from there up to the needle, in a column a few stitches from the marker.
4. Put the number back on your counter, and clip a marker into the round you’ve just counted to. That stretch never needs counting again.

Counting rounds is one part of a bigger habit. The guide to how to count rows in knitting covers the rest: flat pieces, shaping, and keeping your place in the pattern.