All crochet pattern meters are given in American Standard. I use 4mm metal hooks unless otherwise indicated.
The term chetting used throughout this blog is my own terminology: it just makes sense. As knitters knit, crocheters chett.
Understanding the Metre of patterns: My mother is a Continental method chetter and I was too impatient to learn from her. So I taught myself crochet from books (American editions) – and fought against my own logic the whole way through it was an angst ridden experience. Finally though, I persevered and overrode my previous instinctual stitch logic and leanings and learnt to interpret and commit the stitch, the American way.
Then I compared stitch notes with a friend who was learning at about the same time – except she had picked up a UK publication. Everything was wrong and different, yet made sense to me in an old habits kind of way… and then it dawned on me….there was another method – the English method…and it made so much more sense than the American method…except that I had already been trained and programmed…and could not go back.
I tried to revert, afterall the English method made instinctual sense to me, except that I started working both methods and the confusion and failed patterns was ear steaming stuff. So I returned to my established program and have been an American chetter ever since.
It has its benefits – most crochet is written in American. But when I explain a stitch to a new chetter I find myself faltering between logic and programming. So if you’ve been left wondering WHY?! when reading crochet meter, it might be that you are operating in the wrong system.
If attempting to teach another, first crochet a SL, a SC and then a DC and ask them if they think, logically, which they would call a single stitch and which they would call a double. Following their natural logic, lead them into the English or American way.
Fortunately, after this hurdle, chetting becomes instinctual and you’ll find that you start working the right stitch in the right place without hardly looking and it wont matter whether you call it a SC or a DC…unless you are working from a pattern.
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