How to Read Crochet Diagrams

Good morning, today we are going to review how to

read

crochet

diagrams

. If you don't know what a diagram is, this is one right here and I know when you don't know what you're looking at, it seemed like a giant mess of overwhelming confusion, but don't worry, at the end of this video you'll know that you'll see this diagram with a completely new life. Diagrams can now be used to

read

crochet

patterns in their entirety, such as without written instructions or sometimes combined with a written pattern to further enhance the pattern. sometimes you can look depending on who you are or what you prefer, you can look at a diagram and follow it or you can read the instructions and if you have bolts, you can look at the other one just to make sure you are creating the pattern correctly.

Now the first thing you need to do to familiarize yourself with these is to review the basic chart symbols that are used in all languages ​​so that one of the The good thing about learning to read a chart is that if you find a pattern that you like in Japanese, let's say that you don't need to read the Japanese language to understand the pattern if you have to trace it because all the symbols are the same. The same thing in all languages ​​and I think that's surprising, so the first thing we're going to go over are the symbols.

You can find a longer list of symbols on your own Craft Tip and I'll leave that link below today. I just wrote out a couple of basic symbols and we'll go over them real quick, so the first one is the slipped point, which is represented by a dot. Now some of these stitches actually look like symbols and will make it easier for you to remember them that way, so I would say that the slip stitch is represented by a because it's hard to see every time you do a slip stitch, it's pretty imperceptible, so it is represented by a stitch, now the chain stitch is represented by an oval and every time you are knitting and doing a chain stitch, as you know, it looks like an oval, this is how you can remember that for the single crochet it is Equally common to see a plus sign or an X for the half double crochet you will see a long T.

The high point is represented by the T with a B bar mark in the center to remember the high point. This bar mark is meant to show that you are yearning once before inserting the hook. You know that when you make a double crochet, you make the yarn over, you insert the hook and you continue pulling and all that with the double crochet you have two diagonal lines and that is because you make the yarn over on the hook twice before inserting the stitch, you insert the crochet in In the next stitch for the 2 single crochets together you will see two plus signs and they are together, so you can see that this would count as one stitch because you are doing both together the same thing with the two double crochets together as for the three. group of double crochets this is something like the 3 double crochets together, except instead of working over three stitches, you are working on one, so it's like a mini bottle, you will work three unfinished double crochets and then you will knit the yarn over . and go through all the loops left on your hook and you will be able to see that top hat or line at the top showing that it only counts as one stitch.

This is something we're going to go over a lot today. The five double crochets show that this is where 5 double crochets are worked into one stitch creating this shell. Well, that's it for the symbols and like I said, you can download the full symbol chart at Crafter and Council and I recommend printing it out or at least bookmarking it on a website so you can always look back and see it. Diagrams can be drawn for patterns row by row or in the round. Now first I'm going to go over what the charts look like when I'm reading them row by row, so this is a simple diagram that I created myself and I'm going to show you first how to read this and then I'm going to show you what crocheting looks like.

First, most patterns have this key, most chart patterns have this key so you know what each symbol means, so even if you don't memorize them, they usually have this so you know, so first thing what are we going to do. is when we're working in rows we start from the bottom and work up so we'll start here we'll make our chain and then we'll work Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 like in an S formation like a sinks and you can see here I've marked each row and that's how it usually is in

diagrams

too, so here we know that we are going to chain 11 because there are 11.

Sorry 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 we are changing 22 my last diagram I made was 11 so I got confused okay so we'll chain 22 and since this high point is here it tells us. that we are going to double crochet in the one, two, three, four, five, six, training the sixth chained from our hook, then we will skip two chains because you can see that there are no stitches worked in these chains, so we will skip two chains and we will create a shell of five double crochets in the next chain, so you will place five double crochets in this chain. Now again we skip two chains and double crochets in the next chain, then we will chain one and double crochets in the next chain every time you are reading this. graphics, you read this at this top.

I've found a couple of video tutorials on how to read diagrams and Marley Bird in particular calls this a top hat, so he says to follow the top hats, not the bottom hats, that's how we know how to create this chain correctly. here because I know it doesn't touch, but you can see after our double crochet that we have a chain stitch and then another double crochet, so I skipped two chains and created another five double crochet shell in the next chain, skip two chains and double crochet chain stitch since I forgot. to draw that and double crochet now after this double crochet you will chain four one two three four and because look how I actually forgot to go over here how we double crocheted our sixth chain, these four chains here count as a double crochet and this counts as a chain, now here these three chains count as a double crochet and then the fourth chain counts as a chain and lines up like this, so in our next double crochet stitch we will knit a double crochet, so another great thing about having these squares is that you can see exactly where to place your double crochet because if you were reading this in a written pattern it might say chain 4 and double crochet in the next stitch for row 2 and some people might get confused and double. crochet here in the chain space or even in this stitch so that a chart will visually show you where your stitches should go, so after you make a double crochet in the previous double crochet, you will create your shell of five double crochets, so which will skip two double crochets and create its shell in the third double crochet from the previous program and you can see exactly where to place it right in the middle here, then it will skip these two and make a double crochet in the next chain stitch, a double crochet , double crochet, five double crochets, double crochet chain stitch double crochet and row three is the same way, this is how we read the diagrams row by row and I have this sample here because as you can see, this diagram shows us what our finished work will look like when we are done. now I have already created this little mini sample that is the same, this is exactly the same graph, this fish, this clock shows you what this graph says and I know that it is not.

I wish it was a little, maybe I should have blocked it. You could see it better there so you can see our team, our team four and one, our first double crochet stitch, our double crochets, our second double crochet show and our double crochets, etc., so this is the same and I will move on. and no, I want normal because I already did it right, so now I'm going to show you how to work it in the round. Now I have an online graph on the computer that I put together but I didn't print it, so I'm going to go ahead and show you in this book that this is just a typical granny square, so I'm not going to show you anything, you know, okay, so this is a graph that has worked in a circular fashion.

I just wanted to show you what. It seems like now, as you know, every time we work in the round for a Granny Square, we start from the center and it grows, just like any other pot, any other Granny Square will start from the center. Now this Center says it. you chain four to have one, two, three four and you see that little dot which is a slip stitch, so this tells you to chain four and make a slip stitch in your first stitch to create that circle, then you're going to chain five and work three double crochets in the circular chain to work another three double crochets in the circular chain 2 3 double crochets in the circular chain two two double crochets in the circle and this point tells you to slip the stitch in that third chain right there The point is telling you to make a slip stitch in the chain space you created and then in the second round.

Now you can also see that in the round diagrams, each row number is right next to the string at the beginning of each row. I wanted to show you that so you understand how you understand the difference between working row by row and in the round. Before I finish this tutorial today, I wanted to make sure I physically went over how to knit using just a board, okay? to deal with that giant tangle, as you can see, I've decided to show it to you with a different color and I'm going to use bright orange so you can really see these dots, so let me tie my slipknot and get my hook already.

Now this is the diagram that we are going to start from and very quickly we can review it. As you can see, we have some different symbols here. The ovals are the chains, as we know, these symbols are the high point with this one. bar in the middle these are also double crochets, they're just worked in a different way and we'll go over that and the plus signs are single crochets so that's all you need to know for this one so I'll correct that. here so you can still see me working with it now for the bottom remember that row by row we are going to work from the bottom in a zigzag formation so first we will need to chain one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen so I'm going to go ahead and chain sixteen okay here are my sixteen chains and the first thing our diagram tells us is that these chains, this chain three counts as a double crochet and this chain counts as a chain one. so we're going to do a double crochet in the sixth chain, so one two three four five six, so we're going to go ahead and do that one two three four five six double crochets in that sixth chain and the next thing we remember is that we're reading by the top hats, so next is a chain, so we'll chain one after chain one is a double crochet chain, a double crochet chain, a double crochet and we'll continue, so I'll go ahead and do that, oh, and I'm sorry, I should. go back and say that when you're chaining one we also skip a stitch so you can see there are no double crochets, there are no worked stitches in this chain, so when we chain one, we skip the next stitch and then we do double crochets in the next one. chain chain one, skip the next chain and make a double crochet in the next chain, so we skip a chain and we knit two stitches from chain one, whoa, a chain, skip this chain of double crochets to the next chain, skip this chain of double crochets to the next chain. and we continue the same in the future, so we have our first row of double crochets and chain stitches at the end, but first I will say that you can look at this diagram and see that it shows you exactly what we have here and so on. the next row row two we are going to chain three chains of three and the good diagram does not tell us to rotate but we know that we must rotate our work and again with the top hats we are going to be working in the order above and not where the origin is of the stitch, if that makes sense, we're not working up to where the bottom sets were working for the top, so we don't worry about this one yet, we just worry about this double crochet so that the first double crochet tells us that we'll skip the next chain space one space and we skip the next double crochet and we're working on the next chain space one space so we skip the first chain space we skip the first one we skip the double crochet and work on this chain space a space for that to be our first high point.

Now the chart says to work our second double crochet into the chain stitch we skipped, so what we're going to do is work our double crochet into this chain space, so we yarn over and go back and make double crochets in this space so that we have this criss-cross high point. The next thing in our chart is to say double crochets in the next chain space, so we are not doing double crochets in this chain space that we just knitted in. we skip this one, we skip the next double crochet and work in the next chain space, so we skip this chain space, we skip this double crochet and work in the next chain space, the next stitch says to come back and work in the same. chain space we worked on before so we're going to work on this chain space again and then we have our second crossover our next stitch says the same thing we skip the current chain space we skip thischain space we skip the next double crochet and double crochet in the next chain space, then we will go back and double crochet in the chain space we skipped, so skip the work now go back and work on this one, the next one is the same , work on the next string space then go back and work on the previous string space to see how our diagram tells us to work on this string, so okay, there we go, so we will work correctly here on this space, so the double crochet here and then the double crochet in the space that we skipped, okay, so we ended up with our crisscross double crochets and our next stitch says to do double crochet in the third chain, so we were working on this chain alone. a double crochet in the top team from the previous round, so now we are done with our row: this is row 1, row 1, row 2, now row 3, we are going to chain 1 single crochet in the same double crochet, like this which chains 1. turn and make a single crochet in this double crochet stitch like this and then we're going to make a single crochet in each double crochet so I'm going to go ahead and make this part easy and then it also says make a single crochet in the third chain. of the previous row or the top chain of the previous row and this is our chain here, so we're going to make a single crochet in the top chain.

Wow, that's our single crochet row. Our next row is row 4 and it tells us. to chain four one two three four turn your work and what that also tells us is that this chain three counts as a double crochet and this chain one counts as a chain one space, that's why it's above the single crochet, so because this chain three counts as double crochet we're going to skip this single crochet and double crochet in the next stitch, so skip, skip the base of the chain, skip the next chain single crochet and then double crochet in the next one, here we go, Now he tells us to chain. one skips the next stitch and crochets a double crochet into the next stitch, skips the next stitch and crochets a double crochet into the next stitch and, as you can see, it repeats the same way now, at the end of the row, it tells you skip that chain one or Sorry about that single crochet you made and work on chain one, the chain from the previous round, so every time you chain one and turn that's the chain you're working on, so chain one and then work on the teen point like that.

I still have that space instead of working at the low point. Now in row five we are chaining three and turning our work and the next stitch because we are looking at the top hat tells us to skip the chain one space and the double crochet and work. in the next space in a chain, so we're going to skip this space in a chain, we'll skip this double crochet and we'll work in the next space and then we'll work again in the space that we skipped because that's what this stitch says and now We'll do the same thing, we'll skip the next double crochet and work in the next chain space, so we'll skip working in the next space and then we'll come back and do double crochet in the space we skipped, so now I hope you understand what I want say when I say follow the top hats, it just means that if you keep your pattern this way you'll see that you're just working in order.

I don't want these criss-crosses to confuse you. Row six says chain one. and single crochet in each stitch of the row and don't forget to chain at the top of chain 3 from the previous round. Now our last row will work again, it tells us to chain four, one, two, three, four rounds and let's go. to skip the next single crochet and the next double crochet because that chain counts as one stitch, chain a double crochet, chain a double crochet and remember you are skipping a single crochet after each double crochet, chain a stitch, skip a stitch low in the next. and we're working on the chains that we made at the beginning of last dope, so we just knit using a chart, that's how you read a crochet chart and turn it into a swatch so we have our chart and our matching swatch now , remember that whenever you read a crochet diagram, always follow the top hats and don't forget to skip stitches if there are any stitches you should skip, if there are no stitches above a stitch then that means we skip it, thank you for tuning into today's tutorial and tomorrow I'll have a blog post attached that covers all the information we covered today and probably a little more, so definitely check it out tomorrow.

I'll post it in the group. when it's available and see you next time bye