How Do You Read a Fair Isle Chart?

A Fair Isle chart is a picture of your finished fabric, with one square for each stitch. You start at the bottom right square and work up. In the round, every round reads from right to left, and the colour of each square tells you which yarn to use.

Colour changes come fast in stranded work, so learn the rules before you cast on. If you haven't read a chart before, start with how to read a knitting chart, then come back here for the colourwork details.

What does each square on a Fair Isle chart tell you?

Each square is one stitch, and its colour tells you which yarn to knit it with. Most squares are plain knit stitches, so the chart rarely shows a stitch type at all.

Check the key before you read a single square. Lion Brand points out that designers use different symbols, so a symbol that means knit in one chart can mean purl in another. Colourwork keys usually list colours, such as MC for the main colour and CC1 for the first contrast colour, instead of stitch types.

Because every square is a stitch, the chart previews the finished design. LoveCrafts adds that colourwork charts rarely include shaping. If a chart does show some, it is usually at the edges, such as sleeve increases. If a square shows a symbol you don't know, our guide to what the symbols on a knitting chart mean covers the common ones.

Which way do you read the chart?

Start at the bottom right and read each round from right to left. The first stitch of the first round is the bottom right square, and you work upward one round at a time, as LoveCrafts explains.

In the round, you read every round from right to left, because the right side always faces you. Tin Can Knits notes that colourwork is usually worked in the round for this reason. Round numbers then sit on one side of the chart.

Flat knitting is different. Right side rows read right to left, and wrong side rows read left to right. Working a Fair Isle chart flat? Check the pattern notes to see whether the wrong side rows are charted too.

Before you start, ask:

• Does the chart show every round?
• Where does it begin compared with the cast-on?
• Does it start on the first stitch of the round?
• How will you keep your place?

How do you read the repeat box?

A heavy line or box around a block of squares is the repeat. It works like brackets in written instructions. Tin Can Knits describes it this way: work the edge stitches once, work the boxed section as many times as it fits, then finish with the edge stitches.

In the round, the repeat usually runs all the way across, so you work the boxed stitches again and again until the round is done. Lion Brand suggests dividing your total stitch count by the repeat width before you cast on. If it does not divide evenly and the pattern lists no extra edge stitches, recount. A small miscount can pull the motif out of line within a few rounds, so it's worth the minute.

Here is how that looks with a made-up chart. Say round 1 reads, from the right, two squares of MC, then one of CC, then two of MC, and the repeat box is five squares wide. You knit two stitches in the main colour, one in the contrast colour, and two in the main colour, then begin the same five stitches again. Keep going until you reach the end of the round, then move up to round 2.

For more on how repeats work in written patterns, browse our charts and colourwork guides.

How many colours are in each round, and what are floats?

Most Fair Isle rounds use two colours, a main colour (MC) and a contrast colour (CC), as the Tin Can Knits colourwork introduction describes. Some patterns use more, but two keeps the work manageable.

The colour you are not using waits at the back of the work. The strand it makes across the back is called a float. When the chart changes colour, you drop one yarn and pick up the other, and the spare yarn stays behind the stitches.

Carry floats loosely. The same source warns that tight floats compress the fabric sideways, which makes the knitting harder to work and the finished piece look worse. After a long run of one colour, spread your stitches out on the right needle before you carry on, so the float comes out the right length.

The source gives no fixed float length. Some knitters trap, or twist, long floats at set intervals, while the authors almost never do, apart from on mittens. Follow your pattern if it tells you to.

Stranded fabric is also much less stretchy than plain stockinette. Swatch before a sweater-sized project so the size comes out right.

Try it

Pick a place-keeper before your first round. A sticky note under the current round, a highlighter on rounds you have finished, or a row counter all work, and LoveCrafts suggests each of them.

In Row & Round, the highlighter bar does the same job on your chart: it sits on your current round so your place is always marked. Row & Round is coming soon to iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Bottom line

Start at the bottom right, read each round right to left, and check the key for which yarn each square means. Work the boxed repeat across the round, and carry your floats loosely. Mark your place after every round and the colour changes get easier.