Counting the Stitches: The Secret Poetry of Knitting Mathematics
What cheese sandwiches can teach us about counting stitches, solving problems, and finding beauty in knitting maths.
Where to Find Kate Atherley
If you’d like to keep exploring the curious beauty of knitting mathematics, you can find Kate Atherley sharing her wisdom online:
Website: kateatherley.com
Instagram: @kateatherleyknits
Books: including The Knitter’s Dictionary, Pattern Writing for Knit Designers, and her newest project - a knitting math book designed to help makers understand the numbers behind the needles.
Kate’s work bridges the gap between creativity and calculation, offering both inspiration and clear, practical guidance for anyone learning how to adjust a knitting pattern, design their own, or simply make sense of the quiet structure beneath the stitches.
When most people think about knitting, they picture something soft and domestic - the gentle click of needles, the quiet comfort of yarn. What they don’t often see is the maths: the endless counting, adjusting, measuring, and rebalancing that lives beneath every stitch. Knitting mathematics, as it turns out, isn’t cold or clinical. It’s deeply human. It’s rhythm and repetition. It’s structure that holds softness in place.
I’ve always loved that contradiction, the tenderness of a craft built on numbers. In this week’s episode of Cast On, Cast Back, I sit down with Kate Atherley, designer, teacher, and author of several guides that sit somewhere between knitting maths textbook and love letter to the craft. Together, we talk about how numbers shape creativity, what makes a pattern work, and why understanding the logic of your stitches can actually make you a freer knitter.
Kate jokes that she might have been a mathematician in another life. You can hear it in the way she talks about ratios and structure - how the rows and rounds of a garment are just geometry disguised as wool. But she’s also the first to remind us that maths in knitting doesn’t need to feel intimidating. It’s not about equations scribbled in a notebook; it’s about balance. About knowing how to adjust a knitting pattern so it fits your body, your yarn, your way of making.
The Beauty of Knitting Maths
When I first learned to knit, I thought of counting as a chore. Stitch markers were for people more disciplined than I; numbers were just things that went wrong. But over time, I realised that knitting maths is everywhere - in the stretch of a rib, in the slope of a shoulder, in the simple act of increasing and decreasing. When people approach me about learning to knit, the first thing I ask is “Can you count, and are you ready for the answer to be no?".
Kate puts it beautifully: “Maths is how we get from an idea to a wearable object.” Every stitch pattern you’ve ever used, every cable that twists just so, is built from a mathematical sequence. Even the humble sock - that poster child of comfort - is a masterpiece of knitting mathematics, perfectly engineered to fit a curved, unpredictable human foot.
It’s hard not to feel awe at that. Each pattern repeat is a small act of calculation. Each cast-on edge, a quiet bit of design logic. And once you start to see it, you can’t unsee it: you begin to understand that mathematical knitting patterns are their own kind of poetry, written in yarn instead of ink.
When the Numbers Don’t Add Up
Of course, it’s not all elegance and order. Knitting has a way of humbling even the most careful of crafters. The gauge lies. The yarn stretches. The cardigan that looked perfect on paper suddenly fits like a riddle.
That’s where the real creativity begins. Knowing how to adjust a knitting pattern -such as shortening a sleeve, widening a neckline, or reshaping a waist - is where numbers become freedom. It’s where you move from following instructions to truly understanding them.
Kate describes this as the moment a knitter “stops being scared of the maths.” Once you know how to tweak ratios, read shaping like a map, or substitute one yarn for another, you’re no longer bound to a designer’s original vision. You can make something that fits your own body and your own rhythm. And in that small, quiet rebellion, knitting mathematics turns into something both practical and profound.
Numbers, But Make It Personal
I tell Kate about my own early disasters and she laughs, not unkindly. Every knitter, she says, has a story like that. “We learn by doing,” she reminds me, “and doing means miscounting.”
There’s a strange intimacy in that. In realising that mistakes aren’t proof of failure, but evidence of thinking. When you miscount, you’re still engaged in the logic of making. You’re still in conversation with your work. That’s what knitting maths really is: a conversation between your hands and your head, between chaos and control.
Kate and I talk about the joy of patterns that stretch your brain a little, that make you count just one more time. She calls it “knitting for the maths brain,” and it’s not just about solving puzzles. It’s about finding calm through structure, comfort through repetition. It’s the meditative rhythm of counting rows, knowing each number brings you closer to something whole.
If you’ve ever fallen down a Ravelry rabbit hole or tried to decipher the algebraic sorcery of a shawl pattern, you’ve probably thought, Someone should write a proper knitting math book. A guide that doesn’t assume you’re an engineer or a wizard, but still honours the logic behind the loops.
Kate’s work is quietly filling that gap - teaching knitters to see their craft through a mathematical lens without losing sight of its artistry. It’s not about stripping the magic away as such, it’s about naming it and quantifying the poetry that’s already there.
Listening to her speak, you start to realise that knitting maths isn’t just a tool for better garments. It’s a philosophy of making and it celebrates precision, patience, and play.
Stitch by Stitch, Row by Row
By the end of our conversation, I’m more convinced than ever that understanding knitting mathematics isn’t optional - it’s liberation. It’s the difference between following and creating, between imitation and invention.
If you’ve ever wondered why your sweater stretched sideways, or how to adjust a knitting pattern for the yarn you actually have in your stash, this episode is for you. It’s a love letter to mathematical knitting patterns, to every chart that ever made you squint, and to the quiet thrill of finally getting it right.
🧶 Watch the Full Conversation
You can listen to the full episode for free - or better yet, watch the extended video version with Kate Atherley on the paid tier - by subscribing to Cast On, Cast Back on Substack. Join us for more conversations at the intersection of craft, culture, and gentle rebellion. Episode 1 with Kate drops on October 20th.
Because maths might not sound romantic, but in knitting, it absolutely is.