If we meet and we talk about crochet, I’m going to tell you these 2 things :
1. American crochet is written a lot like the book series ‘… for dummies’.
Seriously, French pattern makers do NOT want you to learn to crochet. They expect you to already know how to.
On the other hand, Americans are super prolific at crochet book publishing, and they pretty much always include a help section showing how to make the stiches and giving a lot of very useful information.
Crochet is easy once you’ve mastered the basic stiches. Especially when…
2. …the pattern includes a crochet chart.
When you start doing something new, you want instructions that make that something easy to understand. Generally speaking, detailed instructions are appreciated… and even if this will sound counter-intuitive, may I suggest you get to trying crochet charts as soon as possible? These are included more and more, often alongside the detailed row instructions, but where these instructions require many pages, a chart requires only a small portion of a page. Less words = easier. Pics are easy to get.
Crochet Chart Symbols via Craft Yarn Council
Charts use imagery to explain what you need to do. They work the same wherever you are in the world and once you’ve mastered reading them, you’ll see that they are a clear representation of what you are crocheting.
[info]Basic crochet stiches:[/info]
American (abbr) / British
chain stitch (ch) / chain stitch
single crochet (sc) / double crochet
half-double crochet (hdc) / half-treble
double crochet (dc) / treble
triple crochet (tr) / double treble
slip stich (sl st)
In the next article, I’m going to further explain charts and how to read them.
