How to Write a Crochet Pattern: the Style Guide.

This is the post I wish I'd read before I wrote my first crochet pattern! It's about the little details which are often forgotten but which will make your pattern perfect. I hope it will drastically shorten your learning curve and make the whole process so much easier. There will be a final post after this in which I will talk about the information you need to include in your pattern.

The Good and the Bad
The first thing I'm going to ask you to do is to gather together as many crochet patterns as you possibly can. What you're going to do is start making a list of what you like and what you hate.
1. What makes a pattern easy to read?
Take a look at the font, is it too small or unnecessarily large? Is it fussy or easily legible, or old fashioned? Are there too many fonts or would it help if there were more?
2. What makes it easy to follow?
Are there enough photos so you know what you are making? Does it have a schematic, and does it make sense? Is it broken down into sections so you know exactly what you're making, or is it all mixed up so you don't even know where to start?
3. Is the Pattern standardised?
Are the instructions always written in the same way? Is there consistency in the way the abbreviations are written?
4. What makes it easy to navigate?

Is it easy to find the information you need? When crocheting is it easy to refer back to 'Special Stitches' and 'Special Instructions'? Is it too bland so nothing stands out or is it too colourful so you feel like putting on sunglasses?

Writing the Rule Book 
Now you're going to begin a process which you will probably never finish! It's about refining and improving your ideas. Start to write the rules for your pattern. Start with the basics. Don't worry about the actual content at this point, that's in the next post! 
1. Let's start with Fonts. Let's start with your logo. Even if it's just your name think about it as a logo. Decide how you would like it to look. Choose a font, choose a colour. For every decision you make - record it.
Think about the fonts you want to use in the actual pattern. Will it be one Font? Will your headings be in the same font, will they be in a different colour, will they be bold, will they be underlined?
2. Decide on your abbreviations. When will you use abbreviations and when won't you? Make it a rule so that when you write your pattern it will always be consistent. You might find it helpful to read my How to read a Crochet Pattern post, as it talks about the different ways to say the same thing.
3. What sort of brackets will you use and when will you use them?
4. You've already started to think about bold, underlined, CAPITALS, and italics. So start thinking about these in terms of the pattern instructions. Will you say turn, Turn, TURN, TURN, Turn, or turn? Then try it all again in a colour, turn, Turn, TURN, TURN, Turn, or turn.
5. You might want to write out a few sample lines of pattern to see how it looks. Don't worry about what you're actually writing but how it looks and how easy it is to read, follow and even how friendly it looks. Does TURN make it look like you're shouting!!? When you actually come to write your pattern you'll be so concerned about what you're writing you won't want to have to worry about how you're writing it.

Here are some of my rules.
To give you a better idea of what I mean here are some of my rules from my Style Guide.
Rnd1 -there should be no gap between 'Rnd' and 'number.'
Rnd -when capitalised refers to the current round.
rnd -in lower case refers to a previous round.
3Ch (counts as Tr) -instructions like this should be in curved brackets.
[stitch count] -should be in square brackets.
Don't use hyph-ens!
Colour B, Do not turn - use bold for emphasis.
RIGHT FOOT - use bold and capitals in colour for section labels.
RS, WS, -use bold black capitals only with small abbreviations which might be missed otherwise.
Do NOT fasten off -use capitalised words for important instructions.
Size SMALL only -use capitalised and underlined for labels with in sections.

Hats  Being a crochet designer means wearing an awful lot of different hats! You're an artist, a crafts person, a designer, a photographer, an illustrator, a graphic designer, an editor and a copy writer. I'm sure I've missed quite a few! But Do NOT panic!! Just take it one task and one challenge at a time.
My Grandpa used to say, "If you've something to do and it's hard to begin it, set right about it and don't waste a minute!"
I'll see you in the next post for the very last in my 'how to read and write a crochet pattern' series. I will tell you what information you need to include in your pattern, the building blocks.

 

How to Read a Crochet Pattern.

We are now on the third of my 'how to read and write a crochet pattern' posts. This one is the hardest to write because 'there is no standardisation in crochet'. (Sorry for having to say it yet again!) Those nice people at the Craft Yarn Council have gone a long way to trying to sort things out, but of course things vary from country to country and publication to publication.
I could give you a nice list of crochet abbreviations here but you will find those at the back of any crochet publication. Here is the link to the Craft Yarn Council's list which is the best one I'm aware of. While you're there you can always read their version of this post, here, which is much more in depth than this will be. What I'm going to say is drawn from my experience and frustration of learning to crochet!

Let's start with the basics.
When you pick up a pattern for the first time we're often told to read through the pattern first. I had no idea what this meant, surely I'm not expected to read through all those abbreviations? So this is what I think is meant.
1. Find out about the size that the pattern is written for. You will need different amounts of yarn depending on what size you make. Maybe it doesn't include the size you want, so there's no point going any further!
2. Find out about the materials and tools that are required. This might also stop you in your tracks, or you might need to buy something special before going any further.
3. Find out about the type of stitches required, you might find this in the section on Abbreviations or the section on Special Stitches. Perhaps it uses Tunisian stitches that you've never tried before, or something you don't enjoy.
4. Now hopefully there is some kind of overview or schematic. It's always helpful to understand the order that you will be working. Are you going to crochet those socks from the toe up or the leg down? Is that jumper made in one piece or several pieces which are sewn together at the end?
5. Now you might like to quickly scan the rest of the pattern. Look out for any headings, the order you will be working, shaping, edgings and finally finishing.

Before you start.
Now you really need to make that gauge square! This is a good idea for lots of reasons.
1. First of all you get to find out if the yarn you're using will work.
2. Then you get to find out if your hook size needs to be changed. You might be a tight crocheter like me and if you don't check now that cowl won't be big enough to go over your head!
3. Lastly you get to try out the stitch design you'll be using. Things often look better in the photo than real life, so after you've tried it you might not like the way it looks. You might find it's really difficult and decide not to carry on. It's much better to waste a little bit of yarn and time before you've committed yourself.

Getting down to the Nitty Gritty.
Let's look at the strange language of crochet patterns. I'm including some diagrams so that you can see exactly what the written instructions are expressing.

You might see this in a pattern:

 

    Ch1 (counts as Dc), skip 1st st, Dc in each st across [16Dc]       

Or this: 

 Ch1, Dc in each st across. [16Dc]

 Or this:

 

 Dc in each st across. [16DC]

The brackets at the end of the row show how many stitches you should have when you finish that row. So in the first example we are told that the starting Chain stitch is to stand in place of the first Double crochet stitch. At the end of the row we will have that Chain stitch and 15 Double Crochet stitches.
In the second example the Chain stitch doesn't count at all. So we will have that Chain stitch and 16 Double crochet stitches. In the third example the designer has left it up to you to decide which version to use.

Try these examples:

*2Dc into next dc, Dc into each of next two dc*, repeat from* to* 4 times in total. [16Dc] 

Or this: 

*2Dc into next st, Dc into next 2sts**, rep from * to** around. [16sts]

Or this:

2Dc, Dc x 2, repeat around. [16Dc]

Or this:

(inc, 2) repeat to end. [16]

These all show the same instructions.
The 'inc' here stands for 'increase' and it really confused me when I first saw it in a set of Amigurumi instructions. It was only because the designer had given the row counts in brackets that I was able to work out what was intended. The same designer also used 'dec' to stand for 'decrease', in the same way.

Designers use different ways to say, "make the same stitch twice" and it can get confusing, the quickest way to check what they mean is with the stitch count. I've already used some examples but have a look at these as well. They are all saying the same thing.

  Dc2, Dc2 into next st. 

2Dc, 2Dc into next st.

Dc x 2, Dc2 into next st.

Dc x 2, 2Dc.

(.....)   *..... ,   *.....*,   *.....**,   *.....†,

These symbols can all be used in exactly the same way to show that the instructions between the brackets or after the first star are to be repeated. Sometimes there is an additional instruction for the last repeat which tells you to do something when you get to the dagger or **.

Brackets can also be used in a different way to show that all the stitches they contain are to be made in the same place. So you might see:

(Tr, Ch1, Tr) in the next stitch. 

The brackets might be like this ( ) or this [ ] or this{ }.

 

 Just to really confuse you, you can have both things at the same time.

*2Tr in next st, (Tr,Ch1,Tr) in next st, repeat from * to end.

There is more I could say but I think you've probably had just about enough of that by now. I feel like I should have inserted pictures of kittens 😻 or something to make it more digestible.
I would say if you are really stuck with a pattern please ask!! Email the designer or check on Ravelry. I have messaged other crocheters on Ravelry and I've always been amazed by their very generous response. 
If you are thinking about writing your own patterns it would be a good idea to come up with some kind of Style Rules for yourself. No prizes for guessing what I'll be looking at in the next post!