Every card here is 24 stitches wide, the domestic-machine standard, and sized to a whole number of pattern repeats so the design does not break where the card loops. Pick one to see how it knits up, print it at true scale onto a blank card, save it as a PNG, or open it in the punch card designer and change it. Nothing here needs an account and nothing is uploaded — the cards are drawn in your browser.
Pick a card
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- —card size
- —holes to punch
- —contrast coverage
- —motif repeat
How a 24-stitch punch card works
A domestic knitting machine reads its pattern from a card 24 stitches wide, and that pattern repeats across the entire needle bed every 24 needles. So the arithmetic of punch card design is the arithmetic of 24: a motif that is 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 24 stitches wide tiles seamlessly, and anything else leaves a visible seam every repeat. Every card in this library is built on one of those widths.
The vertical direction has the same constraint for a different reason. The card is snapped into a loop, with two rows overlapping at the join, and then it runs continuously — so your design must also read well repeated top to bottom. Each card here is 36 or 40 rows, chosen so it holds a whole number of pattern repeats and the motif survives the join.
One more thing worth knowing before you punch anything: a hole means “select this needle”, not “knit this colour”. What happens to the selected needles is set on the carriage. On fair isle they take the contrast yarn; on tuck they collect a loop; on slip they are passed over; on lace they transfer. The same card gives you at least four different fabrics, which is a good reason to knit a swatch in each setting before punching a second card.
A worked example: reading the numbers
Take the Bird's eye card, the classic fair isle ground. It is a 2 × 2 tile: hole, blank, hole, blank across, alternating on every row. On a 24 × 36 card that is 12 holes in each of 36 rows, so:
- Holes to punch: 24 × 36 ÷ 2 = 432
- Contrast coverage: 50 % — half the stitches take the second colour
- Printed width at 5 mm pitch: 24 × 5 = 120 mm, plus an 8 mm row-number margin, which fits inside the printable width of both A4 and US Letter
- Hole diameter on the template: 5 × 0.7 = 3.5 mm
Those last two lines are why the template prints correctly on either paper size, and why the calibration square matters: if your printer scales the page to 94 %, every hole moves, and by the twenty-fourth stitch the error is bigger than a hole.
The cards in this library
Geometric grounds: bird's eye, pin dots, checkerboard, brick, houndstooth, windowpane grid, triangles. Stripes and lines: vertical stripes, horizontal bands, diagonal lines, wide diagonal, zigzag, chevron, waves, ladder. Motifs: hearts, small hearts, blossom, rings, crosses, snowflake, nordic band. Texture: diamonds, diamond lattice, concentric squares. Twenty-five in all, every one 24 stitches wide.
Questions people ask
What are 24 stitch punch card designs?
Domestic machines from Brother, Silver Reed and Knitmaster, Toyota and Singer read cards 24 stitches wide. The pattern repeats across the needle bed every 24 needles, so any motif that divides evenly into 24 tiles seamlessly. That is why almost every published punch card design is built on a 24-stitch grid.
How do I print a punch card at the right size?
Print at 100 % or “Actual size”, with fit-to-page off. Every sheet here has a 20 × 20 mm calibration square — measure it before you punch. Hole pitch varies by brand and era, so also lay the sheet over a factory card from your own machine.
How many rows is a knitting machine punch card?
Blanks are commonly around 60 rows, snapped into a loop with two rows overlapping at the join. The cards here are 36 or 40 rows, sized to a whole number of repeats so the join does not break the motif.
Can I use these punch cards on any knitting machine?
Any standard 24-stitch punch card machine — Brother KH models, Silver Reed and Knitmaster, Toyota, Singer. Not electronic machines that read a different width, and not 12-stitch or 40-stitch systems. Check a blank card for your machine first.
Does a punched hole mean a contrast colour?
No — it means “select this needle”. Fair isle knits the selected needles in the contrast colour, tuck collects a loop, slip passes them by, lace transfers. One card is really several fabrics.