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Immediately after you take up crocheting and you browse books for future projects, you will find crochet symbols used in patterns. Crochet instructions can be:
· Written out in words, with abbreviations
· Presented as symbols
· A combination of written instructions and symbols
It's going to take awhile to know the symbols and abbreviations by heart. Symbols are generally international symbols, which means that if you a pattern from England, the symbols used will be the same symbols as those in an American pattern. And since crochet symbols are international, 9 out of 10 they are the same in other countries.
Symbols are used because they save space, and experienced crocheters find they are easier to read.
Donna Kooler says it's really up to the individual to decide if she prefers to read written instructions or interpret symbols. Her advice, however, is to have both handy, if possible. If a stitch or series of stitches is not working properly based on the written instructions, you can compare the instructions to the corresponding symbols. The error could just be typographical, so this is where having both written instructions and symbols is efficient.
As she said, "Charts and written instructions clarify each other. If written instructions don't adequately explain a point, look at the chart and vice versa. Some things are almost impossible to chart, such as cylinders, while some things are much easier to read from a chart, such as lace. Both symbols and written instructions have their advantages: used together they can answer virtually any question you may have about a stitch or pattern."
Whatever you decide to do, memorizing the abbreviations will save you time in looking them up, enabling you to concentrate more on your piecework.
When reading instructions, you will most certainly see brackets and parentheses. These serve to bunch together related information or to indicate alternate stitches. Let's take an example from Kooler's book, Encyclopedia of Crochet:
"(sk 4 ch, 5 dc in next chain) across the row"
This instruction means that you will leave 4 chains unworked - sk here means skip, hence: skip 4 chains. In the 5th chain, you will do 5 double crochets. You repeat the entire process - that is, skipping 4 chains and then doing 5 double crochets.
Confusing?
If you're just beginning, that's perfectly understandable, but as we said earlier, practice makes perfect. And we might add: practice makes comfortable! Don't worry, when you buy any book on crochet, the first chapters will always be devoted to abbreviations and symbols. And as you buy more and more books, you won't even need to read the first chapters anymore.
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