Welcome to Tutorial Tuesdays!
Every crochet designer has their own style of writing patterns.
Today I will talk you through understanding the symbols used in my patterns.
I use three different symbols in my patterns:
Square brackets [ ],
Parenthesis ( ), &
Curly Brackets { }.
On occasion I will use Asterisks * *.
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( ) : Stitch Count at the end of the row or round.
Example:
Round 2: [Sc twice in next st, sc in next st]. Rep [3x]. (12)
After crocheting the entire round as instructed you will have a total of 12 stitches.
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{ } : Number of times the same round or row is repeated.
Example:
Round 2-16: Sc in each st. (12) {15}
This is added to patterns to make your life easier. By looking in the curly brackets you already know how many rounds are the same without counting.
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[ ] : Instructions to repeat.
Example:
Round 2: [Sc twice in next st, sc in next st]. Rep [3x].
You will crochet instructions in square brackets then repeat 3 times. In the example you are crocheting the instructions a total of 4 times.
Example 2:
Round 3: [Sc twice in next st, sc in next st]. Rep [2x]. Sc in next 12sts. Rep [2x].
In this example the square brackets are used three times in one round. You would crochet the instructions in brackets and repeat them 2 times, then continue crocheting as instructed. When told to repeat the instructions in brackets a second time you will repeat them again 2 times. Since the instructions are the same I don't feel the need to write them out a second time and it saves space.
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* *: Instructions to repeat. Used to avoid confusion on what instructions to repeat when square brackets have different instructions to repeat in the same round.
Example:
Round 4: [Sc twice in next st, sc in next st]. Rep [2x]. *Sc in next 2sts, sc twice in next st*. Rep *2x*.
You would crochet instructions in square brackets first and repeat 2 times. Then you would crochet instructions in asterisks and repeat them 2 times. You will notice that instructions in asterisks are different then the ones in the brackets.
This example is a little more complicated but its actually something you will see in my Octavio the Octopus pattern so I want to make sure you know what to do.
Round 5: *[Sc2tog, sc in next 3sts] Rep [2x], sc2tog 3 times, Rep[4x], sc2tog, sc in next 12sts.* Rep *5x*.
In this example you have square brackets in 3 places and asterisks in two places. You will crochet the instructions as written until you get to the- sc in next 12 sts. The last part tells you to repeat everything found inside the asterisks 5 times. So you would basically be crocheting the instructions of the entire round a total of 6 times.
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