Crochet Chart Symbols

Are you new to the crochet chart / diagram game? It’s not a problem!

If you are not sure what I am talking about, and you are asking yourself: What is a crochet diagram? How do I start? Why are people using charts? All of the answers are in this article:

What is a crochet diagram / chart?

Just click the link, so that you have a base to build on! If you know something about crochet charts, however, continue in this article, because it’s all about the crochet chart symbols.

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What are crochet chart symbols?

First of all, let’s be clear and say that…

Crochet chart symbols are the building blocks of diagrams.

Each symbol represents a particular crochet stitch, and these symbols are mostly the same all over the world – that’s what makes diagrams so universal!

Crochet chart symbols interact with each other, so that they can form clusters, or create increases and decreases. Sometimes they merge in advanced symbols, like those for popcorn or bobbles, but you can see that they still use the elements of basic stitches. I will elaborate on that later in the article!

The position of the symbol roughly represents the position of the stitch in the finished product, so you can easily see what shapes they create together.

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What kind of crochet chart symbols will I encounter?

We can easily divide these symbols into three groups:

Basic Stitch Symbols

These symbols represent basic stitches, such as slip stitch, chain stitch, single crochet, double crochet, treble crochet, and so on. These are the building blocks for many advanced stitch symbols.

Advanced Stitch Symbols

This group includes combined symbols, such as clusters, bobbles, popcorns, picots, shells, fans, as well as variations on basic stitches: post stitches, or back loop only.

Technical Symbols

These symbols make it easier for you to follow the diagram, so they indicate where to start, where to end, and which row or round you are actually at.

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How do these symbols work?

As you can see in the cheat sheet, the basic symbols have specific anatomy. They have different heights, because that’s exactly what they are in real life!

Slip stitches (the dot) and chain stitches (flattened circle) are small, but they can be joined together to create fun motifs, such as a picot.

Single crochet small and boxy, that’s why its symbol is x or +. It can change its position depending on its place in the pattern as well.

Next, we have a whole row of growing T-s. Smallest T represents half double crochet, but it’s very similar in height to double crochet. That’s why the next one gets the slanted “bar” in the middle.

The number of these slanted bars on the T will indicate which stitch you are working with, even if it appears in advanced stitches, such as bobble or cluster.

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