Turn any picture into a crochet graph

"Pixel crochet" is what crocheters already call this

A graphghan is a blanket worked from a grid: every square on the chart is one block of fabric in one color, and you read the grid row by row as you go. To get a photo onto that grid, the picture has to become a mosaic of blocks first — a fixed number of them wide and tall, each one a single yarn shade. That mosaic is the graph, and the community's name for the whole workflow is pixel crochet.

The useful thing about the graph is that it does not care how you work it. The same grid becomes a corner-to-corner blanket, a single crochet graphghan, or a tapestry crochet panel. What changes is the shape of the block, how many rows the picture takes, and whether you carry colors or use bobbins. The graphghan techniques guide walks through those differences; this page is about getting the picture onto the grid.

Already have pixel art? It imports at exactly one pixel per block, so a 40×40 sprite stays a 40×40 graph with crisp edges and each color matched to the nearest real yarn shade. No resampling, no blur, no guessing.

How the photo converter works

Fewer colors matter more in crochet than in cross stitch

Here is the part most converters get wrong for crochet. The number of blocks in a graph is fixed by the size you chose: a 100 × 120 graph is 12,000 blocks whether it has 30 colors or 6. The number that changes with the color count is how many times the color switches along a row — and in crochet, every one of those switches is a bobbin hanging off the back, a strand carried inside the stitches, or an end to weave in later. A photo converted at 30 colors is a 30-bobbin blanket, and the picture will not look 30 colors better for it.

As a rule of thumb, most graphghans work best somewhere between 4 and 10 colors. Convert higher first to see what the photo needs, then reduce until the subject still reads from across the room. Because the blocks are chunky — three double crochet tall in C2C — fine gradients turn to noise anyway, so the colors you drop were mostly buying speckle.

Pick your technique

The graph works for any grid-based crochet. What you get alongside it depends on the technique, and it is worth knowing that before you choose.

Plan the project around your picture

Size the graph in blocks, not inches: the finished size depends on your yarn, hook, and technique, and a C2C block in worsted weight comes out larger than a single crochet stitch from the same graph. The how to read a C2C graph guide covers the diagonal and the row count, and C2C increases and decreases explains where the graph turns. To pick the size and buy the yarn first, the crochet blanket calculator turns a blanket size into blocks per side and skeins per color. Matching colors by hand? Each palette has its own chart — Red Heart Super Saver, Caron One Pound, and Bernat Super Value. Prefer to design block by block instead of converting? The crochet pattern maker starts from a blank graph, and the C2C pattern maker adds the written rows. And when the last row is done, the C2C border guide squares up the stepped edge.

Frequently asked questions