Reading Your Knitting: Counting Rows in Garter and Stockinette

Your knitting keeps a record of every row you’ve worked, and it can’t be bumped in a project bag or left behind on the sofa. Once you can read that record, a lost count is a small thing: you look at the fabric and count. This guide is about reading your knitting, and above all about counting rows in garter stitch and stockinette, the two fabrics that nearly everything else is built from. It also settles the two questions that put most counts out by one: does the cast-on count, and do the stitches on the needle?

One stitch, two faces

Every knitted stitch is a loop pulled through the loop below it. What it looks like depends on which side you see it from:

• From the front, you see the two legs of the loop, leaning together in a V.
• From the back, the legs are hidden, and you see a small bump of yarn lying across the fabric.

A knit stitch and a purl stitch are the same stitch seen from opposite sides. Knit a stitch, and its V faces you while its bump is on the far side. Purl it, and the bump faces you.

Stitches stack up in columns, and each stitch in a column belongs to a different row. So counting rows is always the same job: follow one column from the bottom to the top and count what you see, V by V or bump by bump.

Counting rows in stockinette

Stockinette, or stocking stitch, is knitted on right-side rows and purled on wrong-side rows, so every V ends up on the same face.

On the knit side

Spread the piece out on a table under a good lamp. Stay away from the two or three stitches at each side, which are stretched and uneven, and choose a column further in. Rest the point of a spare needle in the bottom V of that column, then hop it upwards, one V per hop. Every hop is a row.

Go in fives, and whenever you reach a multiple of 10, pin a locking marker or a safety pin through that V. If the phone rings, you start again from the pin.

On the purl side

The back of stockinette is all bumps, lined up in rows across the fabric. Each line holds two shapes: some bumps arch like a frown, and the ones between them sag like a smile. Stay in one column and count the frowns alone. Every frown is a row.

When you have the choice, flip the piece and read the Vs. They’re easier.

Where the count starts and where it stops

Most counts that are one row out went wrong at the very bottom or the very top.

The cast-on doesn’t count

A pattern’s row 1 comes after the cast-on, not with it. The catch is that a long-tail cast-on, one of the most common, makes more than an edge: it leaves a first line of loops as well. Seen from one face, those loops look like a row of Vs sitting right on the edge. Seen from the other, they look like a ridge of bumps. Either way they belong to the cast-on. Row 1 is the stitch above them.

The row on the needle counts, once

Whatever is on your needle right now is the newest row. On the knit side, each of those loops has a V dangling from it, and that V is the newest row’s stitch. On the purl side, the newest row shows as the frown tucked right under the needle. Count it like the others, once. The usual slip is to count everything up to the needle and then add one more “for the row on the needle”, which counts the same row twice.

Check it on a swatch

If you’d rather see it than take it on trust, cast on 10 stitches, work exactly 6 rows of stockinette, and count a column. Whichever way of counting gives you 6 is the way to count your project. It takes five minutes, and you’ll never wonder again.

Counting rows in garter stitch

Knit every single row, and the result is garter stitch. Because the work is turned after each row, one row shows its Vs on the front and the next shows its bumps there. The bump rows push forward as ridges, the V rows hide in the grooves between, and the two faces look the same.

The quick count: ridges times two

Look at one face. Every ridge there stands for a pair of rows: the row that made the ridge, and the row hiding in the groove beside it. So count ridges and multiply by two: 12 ridges are 24 rows. For a pattern that says “knit 24 rows”, or “knit until you have 12 ridges”, that’s all you need.

The exact count: both faces

The quick count has a blind spot. It takes every ridge for one of a finished pair, and after an odd number of rows the newest ridge has no partner yet. Depending on which face you’re looking at, doubling then gives you a row too many or a row too few. If the exact row matters, count the ridges on the front, flip the piece, count the ridges on the back, and add the two. Taken over both faces, there is exactly one ridge for every row. With 12 ridges on one face and 11 on the other, you’ve knitted 23 rows.

Two things to watch. The ridge pressed up against the needle belongs to the newest row, so it’s in. The cast-on edge is out: after a long-tail cast-on it looks like a ridge on one face, but no row made it.

Odd or even? Ask the tail

The cast-on tail gives a second opinion. After a long-tail cast-on, your working yarn is at the same edge as the tail whenever you’ve finished an even number of rows, and at the opposite edge after an odd number. With a knitted or cable cast-on it’s the other way round. If you count 23 rows and the yarn is at the tail’s edge of a long-tail cast-on, count again.

The same reading on other fabrics

Garter and stockinette are the alphabet. Other fabrics are spelled with the same two letters:

• Ribbing. Pick a knit column and read its Vs, just as you would in stockinette.
• Seed stitch. In any column, Vs and bumps alternate, and each one is a row.
• Slipped stitches. A slipped stitch is stretched over two rows or more, so count in a column where nothing was slipped.
• Garter in the round. Worked in the round, garter alternates knit and purl rounds, and only the purl rounds make ridges on the outside. The guide to how to count rounds when knitting in the round has the details.

Counting between two points

Often you don’t need the whole count, only the rows since something happened. “Decrease every 6th row” and “work 8 rows between buttonholes” are both like that, and the landmark is in the fabric:

• A decrease. Two columns lean together and carry on as one. The single stitch on top of the two is the decrease row.
• An increase. A new column begins. Its first stitch is the increase row.
• A change of stitch. The first row of stockinette above the ribbing, or the first row of a new colour.

Count upwards from the landmark, with the landmark row as 1. For “decrease every 6th row”, if the V that hangs from your needle is number 4, knit 2 more rows. The row after those is the next decrease.

If you’d rather not hunt for landmarks, clip a marker into each shaping row as you work it, as the guide to stitch markers and lifelines describes. Or let a counter hold both numbers, which is what the page on counting increases and decreases is about.

Make it easier on your eyes

• Light. Daylight from the side shows the stitches better than a lamp overhead. For dark yarn, lay the work over something pale.
• A pointer. Touch each stitch with a needle tip as you count it. Eyes skip. A needle doesn’t.
• A gentle stretch. Pull the fabric slightly sideways, and the columns open up.
• A photo. Take a picture with your phone and zoom in. It works well for fine yarn.
• Fuzzy yarn. Mohair and bouclé hide their stitches. Don’t plan on reading them: place markers as you go.

When the fabric and your counter disagree

Believe the fabric. A counter knows how many times it was pressed. The stitches are what you actually knitted. Count twice, in two different columns, and if the two counts agree, change the counter and leave the knitting alone.

On paper, cross out the old number and write the new one. A barrel counter can be turned to it. Rowpip has −1 and Undo for a tap too many, and its menu lets you type in the right number.

Reading your knitting is the check. A running count is what keeps you from needing it too often, and the guide to how to count rows in knitting covers both.

Reading your knitting, in short

• Stockinette: one V, or one frown on the purl side, is one row.
• Garter stitch: a ridge and its groove are two rows, and the ridges on both faces, added together, are the exact count.
• Leave out the cast-on, and count the stitches on the needle once.
• When in doubt, knit 6 rows and look.