When you think about it, knitting patterns are really an impressive bit of technology, in the broadest sense of the word. The best patterns manage to succinctly convey all the information you need to successfully turn a bit of yarn into a fully realised knitted object. And, very often, they include instructions for making that item in various sizes. This month’s Confident Knitting pattern, the Variance Hat by Janette Budge, for example, includes instructions for making her glowing stranded colourwork hat in four sizes, covering head sizes ranging 45–65cm [173⁄4–251⁄2in]. And the instructions themselves all fit onto just a single page! Pattern writing conventions exist to achieve that sort of extraordinary compression of information. Once you know how knitting patterns are put together, it’s very easy to translate instruction to action. But if you’re newer to reading knitting patterns, or even just have tired eyes at the end of a long day, it can be easy to get lost in the strings of numbers. So today, we’ve got a quick crash course in reading knitting patterns written for multiple sizes.

So the not-so-secret secret to success in parsing multi-sized patterns lies in the parentheses. At the start of the pattern, you’ll see all the sizes available listed. The smallest size is listed first, followed by all additional sizes in the parenthesis. Sometimes these sizes are expressed using numbers or sometimes using conventional terms. Here’s the beginning of the Variance Hat pattern. It’s got a very manageable four sizes, great for getting your head around reading multi-sized patterns.

When you get to the pattern instructions, anytime there are strings of numbers, they refer back to those sizes given at the beginning of the pattern. So if you see a set of numbers like this: 20 (30, 44, 48), you only need to pay attention to the number that matches your size. In this example, the 20 refers to size small, the 30 to size medium, the 44 to size large and the 48 to size XL. If you’re working from a printed pattern, it can be really helpful to highlight the numbers you need, or strike out the ones you don’t, to avoid referring to the wrong set of numbers.

The other thing you’ll want to look out for are subheadings and dashes. The Variance Hat has several places where it directs ‘All Sizes’ to work an instruction, and others where the instruction only pertains to certain sizes. These are clearly marked with bolded subheadings. At the same time, if a certain size isn’t working an instruction, a dash will appear in that string of numbers in parenthesis. The dashes are included so that the other sizes are still looking for their instructions in the "same place". This matters a bit less in a four size hat pattern, but in a ten size garment would be more important! Here’s an example from the start of the Variance Hat pattern:

In the above, instructions pertaining to the size Large have been highlighted. You could just as easily cross out the instructions that don’t apply to you though. So say you’re working round 2 for a size Medium. Crossing out instructions allows you to go from this:

To this when you cross things out: 

Which reads more easily as (by removing the crossed out bits): 

Round 2 (inc): Using yarn A, k2, [kfb, k3] 29 times, kfb, k1.30 sts inc; 150 sts.

Once you know how multi-sized patterns are put together, you’ll find reading them a cinch – especially if you take that extra 5 or 10 minutes to go through your pattern with highlighter or pen for your size (honestly, no matter how long you have been knitting this is a GOOD IDEA that will save many a mistake. Ask me how I know!)

I hope this has given you a bit of extra confidence when reading your knitting patterns. We put together this post in response to customer questions – if you’ve got a niggly knitting question that you’d like us to address on the blog, do let us know and we’ll see what we can do. And if you’re an old hand when it comes to parsing knitting patterns but know a newer knitter, why not forward this post to them? You might save them a bit of knitting heartache. And you can click the image below to learn more about our Confident Knitting programme – 12 projects, 12 top designers, 12 chances to learn something new!