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I thought it was about time that I attempted to tackle one of those weird looking Japanese crochet charts that crop up whenever I google anything crochet. I have attempted to create my own charts in some of my patterns with varying degrees of success but never actually worked through one that I’ve found. So here’s a chart that I picked from here and I’m going to plod through step by step. Now I could be doing this completely wrong (and please let me know if I am) but if I get to the same end result then that’ll do me. This here http://weloveamigurumi.livejournal.com/434126.html is a useful post on the subject particularly where working in the round for amigurumi is concerned.
Oh, and I’m sure these patterns have names so if anyone knows them, let me know and I’ll add to the post.
Now let’s zoom in a bit.
That number 3 at the bottom there tells you that this pattern repeats every 3 stitches (and every 2 rows marked by the 1 and 2 in a circle). So your sample will need to be a multiple of 3 but you will also need to add a stitch either end for your turns. So you want to chain 3, 6, 9, 12 etc then add 2.
For my sample I want to do 8 repeats so will need to chain 26 (8 x 3 then add 2 )
Now we go to the left hand edge of the chart to see what to do at the end of the chain.
The next row starts with 1ch kind of hanging in limbo off the end (the vertical one) on it’s own so do that then make a sc (single crochet) in the second (in other words, the one after the chain you just made ) chain from your hook. You might want to put a marker in this first sc to remind you that it’s the start/end of your row so you don’t get confused with the limbo chain.
When you’ve single crocheted to the end of the row (I find it helps to quickly count back the first few rows to make sure you aren’t going awry at the ends). Let’s look at the next bit. The first of the repeating rows is marked on the chart with the number 1.
So its a chain of 3 (stick a marker in the 3rd of these), then skip the next sc, then a dc (double chain) , chain 1, double chain all in the next sc.
Then skip 2sc, (dc, ch1, dc) in next…..and repeat till you’ve only got 2sc left. If you’ve got more or less than 2, check that you’ve skipped 2sc between each dc group and not 1sc, it’s easily done!
And this is what it looks like at the end of the first repeat row.
The second repeat row (helpfully marked with a 2 at the other end of the row) then is just a limbo chain 1, then sc all the way to the end, including the top of the ch3 (with a marker in). Work these sc in the top of the dc as normal but in the ch1 space between the dc (Around the whole chain, not in it). Count as you go to make sure you’ve still got 26 – it’s nice and easy to count them on this sc row.
Then it’s just a case of repeating the last two rows till you’ve had enough.
In my case..that was 6 times. Actually, this pattern is pretty good for covering space quickly and in the cotton I’ve used makes a fairly robust fabric. If the photograph in the original image is the right side then I actually prefer the wrong side and as a vertical stripe rather than horizontal.
I totally enjoyed doing this so I’m off to pick another one now 🙂
