{"id":4,"date":"2012-05-30T18:22:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-30T17:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tuesdayfortnite.co.uk\/?page_id=4"},"modified":"2012-05-30T19:01:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T18:01:44","slug":"chart-reading-101","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.tuesdayfortnite.co.uk\/?page_id=4","title":{"rendered":"Chart Reading 101."},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1\"PDF\"<\/a><\/h1>\n
Written by TuesdayFortnite<\/em><\/h6>\n

I\u2019ve been asked to put together a \u2018step-by-step\u2019 taking the fear out of crochet charts, so here\u2019s installment part 1 and I hope you\u2019ll join me in this journey of discovery.<\/p>\n

Reading crochet charts can be intimidating if you haven\u2019t yet been inducted into the secret language, but really, honestly, genuinely it\u2019s not difficult.\u00a0 Being an English speaker, I\u2019m now going to make a broad sweeping statement (sorry) and group people into two camps \u2013 those who see charts a little like something written in French or Spanish \u2013 sort of familiar but you don\u2019t know what it means (the letters are recognisable, the words are not) and those who see charts as being written in Japanese, Cyrillic or hieroglyphs \u2013 something completely alien.<\/p>\n

Much like learning to read in English, reading a chart is simply a matter of learning a bit of vocab and a couple of reading \u2018rules\u2019.<\/p>\n

During these sessions we\u2019ll be building two small samplers (one square and one circular) so you get the ideas being shown.\u00a0 You need to be able to chain and do a Double Crochet (DC) and I\u2019ll be using US terminology throughout (despite being English!) So grab some scrap yarn and a hook and settle down class, we\u2019re ready to start!<\/p>\n

Vocabulary<\/h1>\n

First up we need our vocabulary.\u00a0 The vast majority of charts come with a key or legend that lets you know what symbol is being used to represent what stitch.<\/p>\n

An example of a legend or key is to the right.<\/p>\n

\"diagram<\/a>

example of a legend key<\/p><\/div>\n

This one is particularly well written.<\/div>\n

There are international standards of symbols that most<\/em> people use now.\u00a0 You can find a good list of them, including a video showing how to do that stitch on the Hass Design pages<\/a><\/p>\n

Handily the symbol represents a type of stitch<\/em> regardless of what is called, so the double crochet symbol:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Double<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0is also the same symbol for the UK treble crochet symbol.\u00a0 Before you panic though, an easy way to think about these icons is the little bar through the T shape is the number of times you wrap the yarn before<\/em> you start your stitch.\u00a0 When reading charts I rarely think about what the stitch is called \u2013 just that it\u2019s asking me to wrap \u2018once\u2019 or more.\u00a0 I think a lot less using charts than I do with written patterns as I\u2019m always having to remember if it\u2019s a US or UK pattern and what they mean by a \u2018double crochet\u2019!<\/p>\n

When you see a chart symbol it is the same stitch regardless<\/em> of what it is called either side of the pond.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A T with a bar through \"Double<\/a> *always<\/em>* (and by always I mean 98% of the time, there’s always one isn’t there ;-)) … always means that you:<\/p>\n