We’ve come across some online discussions about counting rows recently and realised there is a lot of confusion about what or where to count so we’ve some tips to help.
Count the bumps rather than the Vs
If you try to count the Vs of your stitches (left in picture), you run the risk of counting your cast on as a row, which can put your row count out.
Instead count the ridge of stitch bumps for each row (right in picture). These should look different from the cast on which means your count will be correct.
Stocking stitch
Stocking stitch is the easiest to count as all the ridges are together on the reverse side. Count every ridge and you will know how many rows you have worked so far.
Garter stitch
Because you are knitting every row, there will be ridges on both sides of your work. That means you need to count the ridges on both sides and add them together.
However, if you know that your first row was a “right side row” and that you have just knit a wrong side row, you will only have to count one side and double the number.
On the other hand, if the last row you worked was a right side row , you will find there is one more ridge on the wrong side when you count both sides up.
Moss stitch
This is a little less obvious but there is a simple trick to this too. If you look at your work closely and follow any pair of stitches up their column of stitches you will see ridges sitting diagonally to each other, like the ones ringed in the picture.
If you count all the ridges or bumps up two parallel columns of stitches, you will now how many rows you have worked.
Stripes
When you are counting rows for stripes, the important thing to remember that the first row of the stripe is the ridge with bumps in both colours as pictured here for stocking stitch. For each stripe you count the two colour ridge and then the solid colour ridges in the stripe colour.
Keeping track of you progress
So that you don’t have count from the start every time, you can clip removeable markers into the side of your work every 20 rows. That way you only have count up the markers (and multiple by 20) and then the rows after the last marker.
You can also use row counters where you click to add a row every time you get to the end. Be careful that you do click off each row.
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