By Maribel · Maribel Designs 4 U · Tips & Tricks

So you found a crochet pattern you love. You open it up, excited to get started — and then you stare at it. Abbreviations, asterisks, brackets, numbers in parentheses… it looks like a foreign language.

If that sounds familiar, you are in exactly the right place. Reading a crochet pattern is a skill, and like any skill — it gets easier every single time you do it. By the end of this post you will know exactly how to look at a pattern and actually understand what it is telling you. Let’s break it all down!