Knitting ChartSitting cat
16 sts × 30 rows · DK 7.3 × 10.0 cm (2.9 × 3.9 in) · 3 colors
A sweater front, a tote bag or a cushion for a cat lover. The gold eyes are only a few stitches, easy to add afterwards in duplicate stitch.
Free Animal Knitting Charts
Here are 8 free animal knitting charts: Sitting cat, Puppy face, Penguin, Fox face, Sheep, Bunny, Teddy bear and Owl — from 15 to 21 stitches wide and 20 to 33 rows tall. Every chart opens in the chart editor to change the colors and the size, and all 8 print as one PDF.
The 8 animal charts
Each card shows the chart as it is worked, a preview in real stitch proportions, and the numbers that decide how to knit it.
Puppy face
21 sts × 21 rows · DK 9.5 × 7.0 cm (3.8 × 2.8 in) · 4 colors
A child's sweater, a hat for a dog walker or a blanket square. The muzzle is the background color, so the face itself is knitted in tan with brown ears.
Penguin
15 sts × 30 rows · DK 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in) · 3 colors
A winter hat, the back of a mitten or a Christmas stocking. The face and belly are the background color, so the penguin is knitted in navy with gold details.
Fox face
19 sts × 23 rows · DK 8.6 × 7.7 cm (3.4 × 3.0 in) · 4 colors
A cushion, a tote bag or a woodland blanket square, knitted on a green background with cream cheeks.
Sheep
21 sts × 20 rows · DK 9.5 × 6.7 cm (3.8 × 2.6 in) · 3 colors
A farm blanket, a baby cardigan or a tea cozy, with a cream fleece on a green field.
Bunny
17 sts × 33 rows · DK 7.7 × 11.0 cm (3.0 × 4.3 in) · 4 colors
An Easter basket liner, a spring sweater or a baby blanket.
Teddy bear
19 sts × 24 rows · DK 8.6 × 8.0 cm (3.4 × 3.1 in) · 4 colors
A baby sweater, a toddler's hat or a nursery cushion.
Owl
15 sts × 30 rows · DK 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in) · 4 colors
A cushion, a school bag or the front of a cardigan. The eyes are the background color, so the owl is knitted in brown with navy pupils and a gold beak.
All 8 charts are worked flat, so row 1 is at the bottom and stitch 1 on the right: read right-side rows from right to left and wrong-side rows from left to right. The sizes on the cards measure the motif itself, without the background stitches around it.
Knit an animal chart in four steps
Pick an animal
Choose one of the 8: Sitting cat, Puppy face, Penguin, Fox face, Sheep, Bunny, Teddy bear and Owl. Each card gives the motif size, the DK finished size, the number of colors and what the motif suits.
Open it or print it
Use the button on a card to open the chart in the editor, or download all 8 charts as one PDF. In the editor you can change the colors, set your gauge and check the true-stitch preview before you print.
Place it on the piece
Take a sweater front 80 stitches wide. The Puppy face (21 stitches wide) leaves 59 stitches: knit 29 in the background color, work the 21-stitch motif, then 30 to the end of the row, with the odd stitch on the far side.
Knit it
Work row 1 at the bottom right. On right-side rows read the chart from right to left and knit; on wrong-side rows read it from left to right and purl. Work the large areas in their own yarn, add the accent stitches afterwards in duplicate stitch, and block the finished piece so the motif settles into shape.
How big each animal knits
A chart is counted in stitches and rows, not in centimeters, so the same 8 motifs knit to different sizes in different yarns. The table gives every chart’s stitch and row count, then the finished width and height of the motif at the 3 gauges used on this site (Fingering, DK and Worsted), in centimeters and inches. The sizes measure the motif itself without the background stitches around it; change the gauge in the editor and they change with it.
| Chart | Stitches × rows | Fingering 28 sts × 36 rows | DK 22 sts × 30 rows | Worsted 18 sts × 24 rows |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sitting cat | 16 × 30 | 5.7 × 8.3 cm (2.2 × 3.3 in) | 7.3 × 10.0 cm (2.9 × 3.9 in) | 8.9 × 12.5 cm (3.5 × 4.9 in) |
| Puppy face | 21 × 21 | 7.5 × 5.8 cm (3.0 × 2.3 in) | 9.5 × 7.0 cm (3.8 × 2.8 in) | 11.7 × 8.8 cm (4.6 × 3.4 in) |
| Penguin | 15 × 30 | 5.4 × 8.3 cm (2.1 × 3.3 in) | 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in) | 8.3 × 12.5 cm (3.3 × 4.9 in) |
| Fox face | 19 × 23 | 6.8 × 6.4 cm (2.7 × 2.5 in) | 8.6 × 7.7 cm (3.4 × 3.0 in) | 10.6 × 9.6 cm (4.2 × 3.8 in) |
| Sheep | 21 × 20 | 7.5 × 5.6 cm (3.0 × 2.2 in) | 9.5 × 6.7 cm (3.8 × 2.6 in) | 11.7 × 8.3 cm (4.6 × 3.3 in) |
| Bunny | 17 × 33 | 6.1 × 9.2 cm (2.4 × 3.6 in) | 7.7 × 11.0 cm (3.0 × 4.3 in) | 9.4 × 13.8 cm (3.7 × 5.4 in) |
| Teddy bear | 19 × 24 | 6.8 × 6.7 cm (2.7 × 2.6 in) | 8.6 × 8.0 cm (3.4 × 3.1 in) | 10.6 × 10.0 cm (4.2 × 3.9 in) |
| Owl | 15 × 30 | 5.4 × 8.3 cm (2.1 × 3.3 in) | 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in) | 8.3 × 12.5 cm (3.3 × 4.9 in) |
At DK gauge the motifs run from 6.8 to 9.5 cm wide and 6.7 to 11.0 cm tall, which is motif-sized: small enough for a hat front, a mitten back, a cushion or the chest of a sweater, and easy to center on a panel. A finer yarn makes every chart smaller and a thicker yarn makes it larger, but the stitch and row counts stay the same.
Stranded, intarsia or duplicate stitch?
Each chart is a flat picture motif, so it can be worked three ways: carry every color across the back of the work (stranded), give each block of color its own bobbin (intarsia), or knit the small details in the background color and add them afterwards in duplicate stitch. The table gives the numbers that decide which one is least work.
| Chart | Colors | Most colors in a row | Longest float, stranded | Bobbins, intarsia | Accent stitches, duplicate stitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sitting cat | 3 | 3 | 13 sts | 13 | 4 stitches |
| Puppy face | 4 | 4 | 13 sts | 15 | 12 stitches |
| Penguin | 3 | 3 | 9 sts | 16 | 12 stitches |
| Fox face | 4 | 3 | 17 sts | 16 | 10 stitches |
| Sheep | 3 | 3 | 16 sts | 16 | — |
| Bunny | 4 | 3 | 13 sts | 10 | 2 stitches 1 stitch |
| Teddy bear | 4 | 4 | 17 sts | 19 | 10 stitches |
| Owl | 4 | 3 | 15 sts | 18 | 9 stitches 4 stitches |
Every chart on the page has a float longer than 5 stitches when it is knitted stranded: the longest float runs from 9 on the Penguin to 17 on the Fox face, so a stranded version needs the carried yarn caught behind a stitch about every 5 stitches on any row where it crosses.
Knitted in intarsia, the charts need 10 to 19 bobbins each — one for every separate block of color — and leave 20 to 38 ends to weave in. A stranded knitter carries only the colors used in each row, at most 4 here, where the intarsia version can have up to 11 strands hanging from the work at once. Each of those travels up its own block, so no strand crosses behind the picture and the back of the work stays flat.
7 of the 8 charts have at least one accent color of 12 stitches or fewer, 64 stitches in all: Sitting cat (4 stitches in 1 color), Puppy face (12 stitches in 1 color), Penguin (12 stitches in 1 color), Fox face (10 stitches in 1 color), Bunny (3 stitches in 2 colors), Teddy bear (10 stitches in 1 color) and Owl (13 stitches in 2 colors). Those stitches can be left out of the knitting and added afterwards in duplicate stitch, with no bobbin and no color change in those rows.
The practical order follows from those numbers: knit the background and the large areas in intarsia with one bobbin per block, leave the accent stitches for duplicate stitch after the piece is finished, and work a chart stranded only if you are prepared to catch the carried yarn about every 5 stitches on every row where it crosses. Duplicate stitch is also the easiest way to change an accent color without reknitting the motif.
Why the charts are taller than they would be on graph paper
A knitted stitch is wider than a row is tall, so a square grid is not a square piece of knitting. At DK gauge — 22 stitches and 30 rows per 10 cm — one stitch measures about 4.5 mm across and one row about 3.3 mm, and a chart with as many rows as stitches knits up 0.73 times as tall as it is wide. To knit a shape that is as tall as it is wide, the chart needs 1.36 rows for every stitch.
The Penguin shows the correction: it is 15 stitches wide and 30 rows tall, 2.00 rows for every stitch, and at DK it knits to 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in). Drawn to look right on square graph paper, the same motif would get only 22 rows, and knitted that way it would come out at 6.8 × 7.3 cm (2.7 × 2.9 in): 73% of the height, 2.7 cm (1.0 in) shorter, a squashed version of the shape on the paper.
| Yarn | Gauge | As charted | Drawn on square paper | Height lost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fingering | 28 sts × 36 rows | 5.4 × 8.3 cm (2.1 × 3.3 in) | 5.4 × 6.4 cm (2.1 × 2.5 in) | 1.9 cm (0.8 in) |
| DK | 22 sts × 30 rows | 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in) | 6.8 × 7.3 cm (2.7 × 2.9 in) | 2.7 cm (1.0 in) |
| Worsted | 18 sts × 24 rows | 8.3 × 12.5 cm (3.3 × 4.9 in) | 8.3 × 9.6 cm (3.3 × 3.8 in) | 2.9 cm (1.1 in) |
The charts are drawn for knitted proportions rather than for square paper, so on a square grid they look taller than the animals they make; rows per stitch run from 0.95 on the Sheep to 2.00 on the Penguin. The editor previews every chart at your own gauge in true stitch proportions, so you can see the shape before you knit; to draw your own, print knitting graph paper at the same gauge so the squares match your stitches and rows.
Which chart is best for beginners?
The Penguin is the best first chart: at 15 stitches by 30 rows it is the narrowest on the page, it uses 3 colors, and at DK it knits to 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in).
If you would rather use the fewest yarns, take the Sheep: 3 colors over 21 stitches by 20 rows, the smallest stitch-by-row count among the charts with that few colors, and 9.5 × 6.7 cm (3.8 × 2.6 in) at DK.
Whichever you pick, the chart is flat, so it works on straight needles, and the finished size follows your gauge rather than the chart. Open it in the editor to try the colors you have before you print.
Questions about animal knitting charts
Where can I find free printable animal knitting charts?
This page has 8 free printable animal knitting charts — Sitting cat, Puppy face, Penguin, Fox face, Sheep, Bunny, Teddy bear and Owl — and a PDF of all of them. Each one is worked flat, so it can be knitted on straight needles.
Is there an animal knitting chart PDF?
Yes. Download all 8 animal charts as one PDF, or open a single chart in the editor and print it at your own gauge. There is no sign-up and no watermark.
Which animal knitting chart is best for beginners?
The Penguin is the best first chart: at 15 stitches by 30 rows it is the narrowest on the page, it uses 3 colors, and at DK it knits to 6.8 × 10.0 cm (2.7 × 3.9 in). If you would rather use the fewest yarns, take the Sheep: 3 colors over 21 stitches by 20 rows, the smallest stitch-by-row count among the charts with that few colors, and 9.5 × 6.7 cm (3.8 × 2.6 in) at DK.
Can I knit these charts on straight needles?
Yes. All 8 charts are flat, so they are knitted back and forth on straight needles: right-side rows are read from right to left and knitted, wrong-side rows from left to right and purled. The colors come from the chart either way, and the floats or bobbins stay on the wrong side.
How do you read an animal knitting chart?
Start at the bottom row with stitch 1 on the right. On right-side rows read the chart from right to left and knit the color shown; on wrong-side rows read from left to right and purl. The chart shows the right side of the fabric. The guide to reading a knitting chart explains the row and stitch numbering in full.
Do you have cat and dog knitting charts?
Yes: the Sitting cat and the Puppy face are free cat and dog knitting charts on this page, both flat motifs for a sweater front, a cushion or a bag. The free intarsia charts also include a cat face.
Can I turn a photo of my pet into a knitting chart?
Yes, with the photo to knitting chart converter: choose the width in stitches, your gauge and the number of colors, and it turns the picture into a chart in the browser. Your photo never leaves your device.
Can I use these charts in things I sell?
Yes. The charts are free to knit, change and use in your own projects and in patterns you sell, with no credit or payment needed.
Are these charts free, and what does Pro add?
Yes. Download all 8 charts as a PDF or open them in the editor, without sign-up or watermark. You can knit them, change them and use them in your own projects and patterns. Selecting part of a chart to copy, flip and paste comes with Knitting Chart Pro.
Free to use
The charts are free to knit, change and use in your own projects and patterns. There is no sign-up and no watermark on the PDF of all 8. They are original charts drawn for this page, not copies of a published pattern. Open any card in the editor to change the colors, size or gauge; to draw your own animal from scratch, start in the free chart maker and place one stitch per square.