# How to read a crochet pattern

> The grammar rather than the abbreviations: which bracket means repeat, which number is a count, and how to use the number at the end of a round as the error check it was written to be.

**The short version.** Abbreviations are the easy half — a list you look up once. The grammar is what people get stuck on, and it is four things. `6x (2 sc, inc)` means work the bracketed group six times; the brackets and the asterisk in `*2 sc, inc; rep from *` mark the same thing, because there is no standard and every publisher has a house style. A number at the end of a round — `→ 24`, `(24)`, `[24 sts]` — is not an instruction: it is how many stitches you should have when the round is done, written there as an error check. An increase is two stitches into ONE base stitch, which is where the extra stitch comes from, and it is often spelled out as "2 sc in next st" rather than abbreviated. A round is worked continuously and a row is turned at each end; amigurumi is nearly always rounds in a spiral, which is why a stitch marker matters.

**The three traps.** US or UK terminology, because a pattern in the other dialect works all the way through and produces the wrong fabric — the counts still add up ([convert one here](https://crochet3d.com/tools/us-uk-crochet-terms)). The turning chain, because "ch 2 (counts as first dc)" and "ch 1 (does not count)" give different counts and different edges. And "in the same stitch" versus "in the next stitch", two instructions one word apart.

**The page does the counting for you.** [https://crochet3d.com/learn/how-to-read-a-crochet-pattern](https://crochet3d.com/learn/how-to-read-a-crochet-pattern) carries the full article — one round taken apart term by term, the same round written four ways, six questions answered, and a box you can paste a pattern into that works out every round from its instructions and compares it with what the pattern claims.

Related: [crochet abbreviations](https://crochet3d.com/learn/crochet-abbreviations) · [why your amigurumi came out wrong](https://crochet3d.com/learn/amigurumi-troubleshooting).

Source: https://crochet3d.com/learn/how-to-read-a-crochet-pattern