14 Free Knitting Charts (Lace, Cable & Fair Isle)

Whether you’re a seasoned knitter or someone who just cast on for the first time last month, knitting charts are one of those things that can feel intimidating right up until the moment they click — and then you wonder how you ever lived without them. Charts give you a visual map of your fabric. Instead of reading through rows of “k2, yo, k2tog, p1, sl1, k1, psso” over and over, you glance at a grid and see exactly what your stitches are doing. The pattern lives right in front of you, stitch by stitch, row by row.

This collection brings together 14 free knitting charts across three of the most beloved categories in all of knitting: lace, cables, and Fair Isle colorwork. Each chart description includes enough detail to help you understand the structure, the difficulty level, and where it works best — so you can pick the right one for your next project and dive in with confidence.

Why Knitting Charts Are Worth Learning

Before jumping into the charts themselves, it’s worth spending a moment on why charts are such a powerful tool. Written patterns are perfectly valid, and many knitters work from them their entire lives. But charts offer something written instructions can’t quite replicate: spatial awareness. When you see a horseshoe cable on a grid, you can actually see the horseshoe taking shape. When you look at a lace repeat, the diagonal lines of yarnovers and decreases create a visual echo of the finished fabric.

Charts also make it much easier to track your place. You can use a magnetic board, a sticky note, or a row counter app to keep your spot, and you know at a glance whether the next stitch should be a knit, a purl, a cable cross, or a color change. Mistakes are easier to catch too, because the chart shows you what the fabric is supposed to look like structurally.

If you’ve been avoiding charts, the best approach is to start with a simple one — a small 4-row lace repeat or a basic 8-stitch cable — and work through it alongside the written instructions until you feel the connection between the symbols and the stitches. Most knitters find that after two or three projects, they prefer charts entirely.

The Five Key Chart Symbols You’ll See Again and Again

Most knitting charts use a shared visual language, though individual designers sometimes vary their symbols. Here are the five you’ll encounter most often across all three categories in this list.

A blank square or a square with a horizontal dash typically represents a knit stitch on the right side and a purl on the wrong side. A dot or a square with a vertical dash is the opposite — purl on the right side, knit on the wrong side. A circle represents a yarnover, which is the fundamental building block of lace. A diagonal line leaning left or right indicates a decrease, with the direction of the lean telling you which stitch “wins” (k2tog leans right, ssk leans left). And a cable symbol — usually a rectangle split diagonally — tells you how many stitches cross and in which direction.

With those five in your toolkit, you can decode most charts you’ll come across in the wild.

5 Free Lace Knitting Charts

Lace knitting is built on the interplay between yarnovers and decreases. The yarnover creates a hole and adds a stitch; the decrease removes a stitch to keep the stitch count balanced. What changes from pattern to pattern is the placement and rhythm of those two moves, and that’s where all the magic lives.

1. Simple Feather and Fan

Feather and Fan — sometimes called Old Shale — is one of the oldest and most beloved lace patterns in the knitting canon. The chart is just four rows over a multiple of 18 stitches, making it wonderfully approachable for beginners. Rows one and three are knit plain, row two creates the undulating decrease-and-yarnover sequence, and row four is a straight purl row. The result is a sweeping wave of scalloped fabric that looks far more complicated than it is. This chart works beautifully in shawls, baby blankets, and the hems of cardigans.

2. Horseshoe Lace

Horseshoe lace creates a repeating arch motif that’s symmetrical and satisfying. The chart typically runs over 10 stitches and 8 rows. The yarnovers fan outward from the center of each repeat, and the decreases frame them on either side, creating a curved bracket shape that stacks neatly into columns. Because the repeat is small and the pattern is highly readable on a chart (you can literally see the arch forming in the grid), it’s an excellent choice for your second or third lace project. It suits scarves, yokes, and any panel you want to give a delicate, vintage feel.

3. Traveling Vine

The Traveling Vine chart is a 10-row, 8-stitch repeat that produces a sinuous, organic-looking vine of eyelets that twists diagonally across the fabric. The yarnovers shift one stitch to the left every few rows, dragging the lace column with them and creating that characteristic lean. On the chart, you can see the diagonal clearly — the circles and decrease symbols march steadily across the grid in a way that written instructions can barely convey. This pattern is particularly stunning in a fingering-weight yarn with good stitch definition, and it makes gorgeous socks, shawls, and light summer tops.

4. Diamond Lace

Diamond lace arranges yarnovers and decreases into a repeating diamond grid. The chart is typically a 12-row, 12-stitch repeat, and it produces fabric with a geometric clarity that reads as structured and elegant rather than frilly. Because the repeat is square, it tiles perfectly and is easy to center on any width of fabric. Diamond lace is a popular choice for shawlettes, lightweight wraps, and the body panels of lacy blouses. On the chart, the diamonds appear as four-sided outlines made from diagonal lines of eyelets — visually satisfying and easy to track.

5. Print o’ the Wave

This Scottish lace pattern is a bit more advanced, but it’s included here because the chart makes it so much more manageable than the written instructions suggest. The repeat runs over 17 stitches and 16 rows, and it produces deep, sweeping waves with a frothy edge that mimics the curl of a breaking wave. The key to working this chart is recognizing that each row of the repeat does slightly different work — some rows travel left, some travel right — and the chart makes that directionality immediately visible. Print o’ the Wave is stunning in a semi-solid fingering yarn and is a classic choice for heirloom shawls.

5 Free Cable Knitting Charts

Cable patterns are created by temporarily rearranging the order of stitches — usually by slipping some stitches onto a cable needle, working the next stitches, then working the held stitches. The direction of the cross determines whether the cable twists left or right. On a chart, cable symbols typically show you a shaded or crossed rectangle telling you exactly how many stitches cross and in which direction.

6. Classic 6-Stitch Cable

The 6-stitch rope cable is the foundation of virtually all cable knitting. It’s a 6-stitch, 8-row repeat: five rows of knitting the six cable stitches plain (in between purl ribs, typically), and then on the sixth row, slipping three stitches to a cable needle, knitting three, then knitting the held three. On the chart, the cable cross appears as a simple shaded rectangle with a diagonal line, and the four rows of plain knitting on either side of it give the cable its characteristic twisted-rope appearance. If you’ve never used a chart to work a cable, this is the one to start with.

7. Honeycomb Cable

The honeycomb cable creates a fabric of interlocking cells that looks intensely complex but is actually built from alternating 4-stitch cables crossing left and right in a regular grid. The chart is an 8-stitch, 8-row repeat. Rows 1, 3, 5, and 7 are alternately plain (knit the cable stitches straight) and cabled, with the crossing direction flipping every other cable column. The result on the fabric is a tight, textured fabric that resembles the cells of a honeycomb. It’s especially beautiful in a worsted-weight wool and is a popular choice for the yokes of Aran sweaters and the cuffs of gloves.

8. Braided Cable

The braided cable mimics the look of a three-strand braid by using three separate 2-stitch cable columns that regularly cross over one another. The chart typically covers 12 stitches and a 12-row repeat. Reading the chart is enormously helpful here because you can literally see the three strands weaving left and right across the grid — trying to follow this from written instructions alone requires memorizing a fairly complex sequence. On the chart, each crossing is shown as a small rectangle, and the interweaving pattern makes the structure of the braid immediately legible. Braided cables are particularly lovely on handbags, tote bags, and the sleeves of cables sweaters.

9. Aran Diamond Cable

The Aran diamond cable is a classic panel design that places a large, elongated diamond shape at the center of a fabric panel, often surrounded by seed stitch or moss stitch fill. The chart runs over 16 stitches and typically 24 rows for a full diamond repeat. The cables travel outward from the center to form the diamond’s sides and then converge back inward at the bottom. On the chart, those traveling cables appear as diagonal lines of crossed-stitch symbols radiating from and returning to a central axis — it’s one of those charts where the finished pattern shape is entirely visible in the grid before you’ve knit a single stitch.

10. Celtic Knot Cable

The Celtic knot cable creates the appearance of an endless looping knot and is one of the most visually dramatic cable patterns available. The chart typically spans 20 stitches and 32 rows. It combines cables crossing in both directions and uses a center panel of traveling stitches to create the interlocking loops. This is genuinely an advanced chart, and it requires careful attention to which stitches are slipping to a front cable needle versus a back cable needle. That said, the chart makes it far more workable than the written version, because you can see the loop structure forming in the grid as you progress through the rows. This cable is best used as a standalone panel on a pillow, an Aran sweater back, or a statement blanket.

4 Free Fair Isle Knitting Charts

Fair Isle — sometimes used interchangeably with the broader term stranded colorwork — involves carrying two or more colors across a row and picking up the non-working color at regular intervals to create float strands on the wrong side of the fabric. The charts for Fair Isle are worked differently from lace and cable charts: each square is filled with a color or a symbol representing a color, and you simply work across the row reading the chart from right to left (on right-side rows) and left to right (on wrong-side rows). The key to successful stranded colorwork is keeping your floats loose and even, and the chart is your constant guide for when to switch colors.

11. Classic OXO (Snowflake Alternating) Chart

The OXO chart alternates small diamond shapes with cross-shaped motifs in a two-color repeat that’s perfect for beginners stepping into Fair Isle for the first time. The repeat is typically 8 stitches and 8 rows, and neither color is carried for more than four stitches without being caught, which keeps your floats neat and your fabric smooth. This chart is almost universally used for its first-project-friendly structure and appears on mittens, hats, and yokes around the world. The OXO name comes from the alternating round (O) and cross (X) shapes that emerge from the geometry of the repeat.

12. Peerie Border Chart

In Shetland knitting tradition, a peerie is a small, simple colorwork motif used as a narrow border or filler between larger pattern bands. Peerie charts typically run just 3 to 7 rows and use simple geometric shapes — small diamonds, dots, zigzags, or tiny crosses — that introduce color without demanding complex float management. The chart for a classic peerie border might be just 6 stitches wide and 5 rows tall, making it an ideal introduction to reading colorwork charts. These borders are excellent at the cuffs and hems of colorwork sweaters, around the brim of a stranded hat, or between the larger pattern bands on traditional Shetland yoke designs.

13. Norwegian Snowflake Chart

The Norwegian snowflake is one of the most recognizable motifs in all of knitting — an eight-pointed star that appears on everything from ski sweaters to Christmas stockings. The chart typically occupies a square grid of about 23 by 23 stitches, and the eight-pointed symmetry makes it both visually striking and chart-friendly (once you’ve worked one quarter of the motif, you essentially repeat the movement in mirror image). The snowflake is usually worked as a central feature on the back and front of a sweater, as the crown motif on a hat, or as the focal point on a pair of mittens.

14. Allover Houndstooth Chart

Houndstooth is a two-color geometric repeat that produces that iconic irregular check pattern familiar from tailored fashion. The knitting chart is a 4-stitch, 4-row repeat, making it one of the smallest and most compact colorwork charts you can work with. The color sequence alternates in a specific off-center rhythm that creates the characteristic “broken check” shape rather than a plain square grid. The floats are short — never more than three stitches — so it’s easy to manage and knits up quickly. Allover houndstooth is stunning worked in high-contrast color combinations on bags, cowls, and the body of a close-fitting pullover.

Tips for Working From Knitting Charts

Now that you have 14 charts to explore, here are a few practical habits that will make your chart-knitting experience smoother from the start.

Always read the key before you begin. Even if you think you know what a symbol means, designers occasionally adapt standard symbols for their own purposes, and a five-second glance at the key can save you from frogging four inches of lace because you misread a symbol.

Mark your rows as you go. Whether you use a sticky note, a highlighter on a printed chart, or a row counter, keeping track of where you are in the repeat is essential. For lace especially, losing your place in a chart is the most common source of errors.

Work a gauge swatch using the chart. This is especially true for lace, where blocking dramatically opens the fabric and shifts the proportions of the motifs. Your gauge swatch will also give you the chance to internalize the rhythm of the repeat before you’re committed to a full project.

Count your stitches at the end of every row when working lace. Yarnovers add stitches and decreases remove them, and if you miss either one the stitch count shifts and the chart reading becomes impossible. A periodic stitch count is your safety net.

For cables, keep a second cable needle nearby even if you usually only use one. Large cable patterns sometimes require crossing stitches in both directions on the same row, and having two cable needles ready prevents the frantic needle-juggling that causes mistakes.

For Fair Isle, swatch to check your float tension. If your floats are too tight, the fabric will pucker. If they’re too loose, they’ll snag. The chart will tell you where to switch colors, but your hands have to manage the tension — and a swatch is where you train them.

Building a Chart Library

One of the most useful habits an experienced knitter develops is keeping a personal chart library. Any time you work a chart you love — a lace repeat that suits your style, a cable panel you want to use again, a colorwork border that was just the right size — print it out or save a clear digital copy and file it somewhere you can actually find it. Over time, that collection becomes a personal design resource. You can mix a peerie border from one project with a diamond lace from another, frame a snowflake motif with a traveling vine border, or combine an Aran diamond cable with a honeycomb background.

Knitting charts, at their best, are not just instructions for a single project. They’re a vocabulary. The 14 charts in this collection represent a solid starting vocabulary — covering the range from beginner-friendly lace waves and simple rope cables to advanced Celtic knotwork and allover colorwork — and each one is a building block you can carry forward into your own original designs.

Wherever you’re starting from, the best next move is always the same: pick one chart, cast on, and let the stitches do the talking.