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:D Hi, I"m from El Paso, TX. Belong to a knitting and crocheting group, we meet once a week for five hours. Have made baby hats for premies, blankets for a local hospital. We don't know how to read instruction on pattern books. All of us have been taught by a grandma, aunt, friend or mother. Whatever new stitch we learn we teach to the other girls in the group. I would like to learn to read instructions, someday.
El Paso Lady
El Paso Lady,
Hello! It is nice to meet you! What a wonderful thing to get together with others who share the same love of crocheting to help others! Your group friends are more than welcome to join Crochet Talk as well! Just wanted to let you know!
Hi, El Paso Lady
Glad to have you. You know reading patterns is just like anything else--it takes practice and learning what the abbreviations mean. Usually there is a cheat sheet somewhere (mine is in a crochet book) that explains what each of the abbreviations mean. Such as sc means single crochet, dc means double crochet, inc means increase, dec means decrease, ch means chain.
I would suggest looking at a pattern for something you already know how to do and see how they describe it and look up the abbreviations on the internet.
For example to start a hat you would ch (chain) six stitches and connect those with a sl stch (slip stitch).
The next round you would sc 2 in each sc which means you would single crochet 2 stitches into each of the six single crochet stitches you just made so that you have increased the hat to 12 stitches.
The next row you would *sc, 2 sc repeat from* which means you would single crochet in the first stitch and make two single crochet stiches in the next stitch. Repeat from * just means you repeat crocheting 1 single crochet and then crocheting 2 stitches in the next stitch over and over until you reach the end.
Anyway, lol, this probably doesn't make sense---but what I'm trying to say is that it's not as hard as you think. Regardless, I think it's wonderful that you gals all get together and show each other things and do such good deeds.
Welcome to the forum!
Now that there are so many videos online (many links in this forum) you can learn new stitches just by watching a video!
Patti Hale, thanks for the words of encouragement. Have purchased a book "Crocheting and Knitting" for dummies. Will attempt to do something.
Thanks again.
El Paso Lady
Hi El Paso Lady,
My best friend in the whole world lives in El Paso I have tried over the years to interest her in crocheting but instead she got me hooked on crocheting. She too does a lot of charity work for the various hospitals and women's shelters in the area.
Learning to read a pattern takes a little practice and a mind set but it can be done. I started off reading patterns at the age of 10 so I think nothing of working from a pattern. There is a trend that started in crocheting about 30 years of ago of writing symbol patterns (each stitch has a specific symbol and the whole piece is drawn out instead of written out). I must say that once I got the hand of symbol patterns I rarely used the written patterns. So look around I am finding out that there are literally millions of crochet patterns out on the net.
Bless you for your work. Bayou girl from Louisiana