Videos are great for learning how to crochet but patterns are everywhere. Most patterns you find will be in the US notation of stitches or the UK notation of stitches. The only real difference is what stitches are called. (if there are any other notations please, please contact me!) UK stitches are normally one step/stitch up from the US stitch notation, so for example a double stitch in the US is a triple stitch in the UK notation. There are also many ways that patterns are presented so I will be going through two of the most common types you will see online and in books.
Crochet Charts
Charts look scary but once you understand the symbols it is a really visual guide. It’s also not to hard to learn the symbols, below is a list of the ones I will be referring to for now, but they can get pretty monstrous.
The chart above is made up of the ovals, and cross symbols. Going back to out little guide, the ovals are………
If you guessed chains, you are correct, and the small crosses are single crochets, so given that info, this pattern starts out with chain 6 stitches, plus 1 more and single crochet into the fifth chain. This small pattern above also serves as great practice, for crocheting rows which is a really good basic to have under your belt.
The chart above still includes ovals, but instead of the small crosses indicating single crochets, there are dashed ‘T’s indicating double crochets. For circular patterns like this one you start at the center, so for this circle you’d start by chaining four, and the little dot underneath the three vertical chains is a slip stitch, a combing stitch. We know chains, but the dashed ‘T’s are new, as previously said they are double crochets and their easy to identify for their dashes.
Charts can get really scary but smaller easier ones are quite fun to decode and help develop your knowledge of the different stitch types.
Written Patterns
I like written patterns better, but you have to already know the abbreviations. In the pattern above, it is very simple and organized by rows. Rows are the ‘lines’ of crochet, so in this case ‘row 1’ is simply chaining 5. Written patterns can get tricky because people do write them differently, but there is always enough similarities for anybody to pick up the pattern. There are a couple of weird things when it comes to patterns, such as when there are more then one stitch in 1 stitch because they are usually expressed in parentheses. This pattern above much like the other ones is pretty simple and is chill practice.