Stitch Patterns
The stitch pattern a project uses decides two things most people underestimate: whether a given cast-on count will actually work, and how much yarn the finished piece will really take. This section covers both, per pattern, rather than treating "rib" or "crochet" as one undifferentiated category.
Knit basics
- Stockinette stitch — the flat, curling baseline every other knit constant on this site is measured against
- Garter stitch — the non-curling, no-multiple-required alternative
- 1x1 rib and 2x2 rib — the two most common ribbed edges, genuinely different in both stretch and yarn use
- Seed stitch — textured and flat, easy to confuse with rib by name alone
More ribs and textures
- 3x3 rib — the boldest, least elastic of the standard rib widths
- Double seed stitch — seed stitch's checkerboard-blocked cousin
- Basketweave stitch and waffle stitch — two different routes to a woven-grid look
- Broken rib and mistake rib — two ribs deliberately built to behave differently from a "clean" rib
- Linen stitch — slipped-stitch floats that produce genuinely woven-looking fabric
- Herringbone stitch — a diagonal weave built from paired, leaned stitches
- Brioche stitch — a puffy, doubled fabric built from yarn overs and slipped stitches
- 4-stitch cable and 6-stitch cable — the standard entry points into cable crossings
- Chevron/zigzag stitch — waves built from paired increases and decreases, in both crafts
- Feather and fan lace — the classic Shetland lace repeat
Crochet basics
- Single crochet — the densest common stitch, and the default for amigurumi
- Half double crochet — genuinely between single and double crochet, not just in name
- Double crochet — the workhorse of garment and blanket crochet
- Granny square motif — worked in rounds from a center point, not rows
Why the same area can need very different amounts of yarn
Stitch pattern choice genuinely changes how much yarn a project needs, even at an identical gauge and area. A ribbed panel, for instance, draws the fabric in tighter than the identical yarn worked flat, and this site's calculator accounts for that directly rather than treating every knit stitch pattern as one interchangeable case. Crochet stitch height complicates the picture in its own way, trading yarn spent per individual stitch against the total number of stitches needed to fill the space — worth understanding conceptually, but a real project deserves weighing a real swatch rather than trusting a rule of thumb.
Finding a cast-on that fits your stitch pattern's repeat
Every ribbed or offset stitch pattern needs a stitch count that lands on a specific multiple, not just any number your gauge math produces. The Cast-On Calculator handles the rounding automatically once you tell it which pattern you're working.
FAQ
How do I know if a stitch pattern needs a specific multiple? Each page in this section states its pattern's multiple explicitly, including any fixed offset (like seed stitch's "multiple of 2, plus 1"). Stockinette, garter, and the basic crochet stitches have no multiple requirement at all.
Is a taller stitch always more yarn-efficient than a shorter one? Not universally — it depends on how the specific stitch's structure trades taller-but-fewer stitches against shorter-but-more. Check the actual figures on each stitch's own page rather than assuming height alone predicts yarn use.