If you’ve attempted to follow any of my patterns you may have noticed that I have my own little system. To me it’s very straight forward, but I am also a programmer at heart so what appears more or less obvious to me might be very confusing to others. I’m gonna try and make it less confusing by explaining a bit here.

Under About the pattern I usually state the finished size of the item, the difficulty of the pattern, and other notes such as what crochet terminology is used (I always use US crochet terminology).

Under Materials & Tools I list all the materials and tools you’ll need to finish the pattern such as crochet hook sizes, yarn and scissors.

Under Abbreviations & Stitches used I list all abbreviations (with explanations) and stitches I use in the pattern. If you don’t know all of these it will be difficult to finish the item. But the abbreviations are all explained so if you don’t know one or more of the stitches used you can simply google them and find many tutorials. I try to use well established abbreviations such as sc for single crochet as much as possible, but sometimes I make up my own to fit the pattern.

A typical instruction of mine looks like this:

R8 [6 sc, inc, 6 sc]×3 (42)

Which means, for row/round 8, *single crochet once in each of the next 6 stitches, increase (2 single crochets in the same stitch) in the next stitch, single crochet once in each of the next 6 stitches, repeat from * 2 more times (3 in total). At the end of the row there should be 42 stitches.

I include instructional pictures in each of my patterns marked with P1, P2, P3, and so on. In the instructions they are referred to as P1, P2, P3, and so on, or P1-3 meaning picture 1 through 3.

Please comment on any of my patterns if you want me to explain something else/more in this little how-to!