Why I Read Written Patterns and Skip the Symbol Charts
Okay. You've got gauge behind you now, and you're reading actual rows of a pattern without me holding your hand through every abbreviation. So let's talk about something you're going to run into pretty soon: symbol charts.
If you haven't seen one yet, you will. It's a diagram made of little symbols — an oval for a chain, a plus sign or an X for a single crochet, a T-shape for a double crochet — all arranged in the shape the finished piece is supposed to take. Granny squares get charted like this a lot. So do doilies and anything worked in the round with a fancy stitch pattern.
I'm going to tell you right now: I don't read them. Never have. To me they look like hieroglyphics, and I've been doing this for over forty years. I read the written pattern instead, every time, and I want to show you why that's a perfectly fine way to work, not a lesser one.
What a written pattern actually looks like
You already know this shape from the last couple lessons. Something like:
Row 1: Ch 15. Sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across. (14 sc)
Row 2: Ch 1, turn. Sc in each st across. (14 sc)
It's a sentence. You read it left to right, top to bottom, the same way you'd read a recipe. Do this, then this, then this. There's a stitch count at the end in parentheses so you can check your own work. Nothing about it requires you to translate a picture first.
Why the chart trips people up
The chart is trying to show you the whole shape at once — every stitch, laid out spatially, sometimes in a circle, sometimes in rows that stack in a way that doesn't match how you're actually holding the work in your hands. For some people that clicks immediately. Good for them. For me it never has. I look at a chart and I have to translate it into words in my head before I can do anything with it anyway, so I figure, why not skip the middleman and just read the words to begin with.
There's also a practical problem: a chart usually doesn't tell you which way to read it without a key, and the key is often in tiny print in the corner, and half the time I can't find my readers when I need them for that part. The written pattern just tells you. Row 1. Row 2. In order.
The opinion part
Here's my actual opinion on this, plainly stated: you do not need to learn charts to be a good crocheter. People act like charts are the "real" way to read a pattern and words are for beginners who haven't leveled up yet. That's not true. Plenty of excellent crocheters, myself very much included, never learned them and never will. If you like charts, wonderful, go learn them, more power to you. If you don't, the written version exists for basically every published pattern, and you're allowed to just use that one and skip the chart entirely.
How to find the written version when a pattern only gives you a chart
Sometimes you'll get a pattern that's chart-only, no words. It happens more with older patterns and with anything from overseas. A few things to try:
- Scroll down (or flip the page) — a lot of designers put the written version right after the chart, or in a separate section.
- Check for a "written instructions" toggle if you're looking at something online.
- If it's truly chart-only, you can write it out yourself as you go. Work one round, say the stitches out loud as you do them, jot it down. It's slow the first time. It gets you a translated pattern you can actually follow after that.
A story about this
I remember sitting in Relief Society years back, working on something, and a younger woman leaned over and told me crochet was so calming, so mindful, isn't it just so relaxing. I told her, no, it's not calming, it's counting. And I meant it. Reading a chart or a written pattern is the same kind of thing — it's not about which one feels more zen. It's about which one gets the information into your hands correctly. For me that's words. Counting words instead of counting symbols. Neither one is the soulful, mindful version. They're both just instructions.
Before next time
Next lesson we start actually shaping something instead of a plain rectangle, so for now, if you come across a pattern with a chart in it, see if you can hunt down the written version instead and notice whether you even miss the picture.