Spring Is Here!

For some of us in the United States, there still may be snow on the ground or in the forcast. For those in the Southern hemisphere, things are moving towards fall. I'm in central North Carolina, and it's been quite a warm winter. It's also been spring-like temperatures and weather for a couple weeks already. While I'm not trying to rush away the winter, I love Spring!! I love seeing new plants coming out of the ground and flowers blooming all over the place. One of my favorite flowers is the Bradford Pear Tree (but they're often considered an acquired smell).

The equinox was yesterday. My partner and I celebrated with a small fire outside and a dinner of spinach quiche (eggs and grass for springtime).

In order to celebrate spring, I wanted to share a few pattern ideas with you.

I love this Butterfly Garden Square by Chris Simon

A quick, fun, Tiny Butterfly by Emi Herrington

Some super cute daisies by Annemaries Breiblog

And this lovely Melinda Miller design, Thankful Stitches

This one I made just last week :)

Do you have any favorite springtime pattterns?

Reading Charts

Have you ever gotten a pattern that came with a chart? Maybe the pattern was only a chart. The first time I saw one of these, I thought, "And how am I supposed to crochet from this?" Since then, I've learned some of the symbols and gotten a chance to practice reading charts that had written versions as well. If you've never used a chart before, I highly recommend that approach. To get you started, I present to you this lovely graphic of symbols thanks to the Craft Yarn Council. There's actually all kinds of useful information on their website, for both knit and crochet.

There's a downloadable pdf available on their website.

And for fun, I wanted to share with you this video put together by The Crochet Crowd.

 

Crochet Crowd Symbols Quiz

Reading a chart can sometimes be frustrating. Sometimes they aren't done very well, or you really need a note of clarification on which direction to go when. If there's a curve to the work, it can take some practice to know where to put your stitch. Working in rows is much easier to understand; the stitches tend to line up. Like always, be sure to read any special stitches, tips, or extra directions given with the pattern.

In this chart, the clusters of dc go into the chain space (except for the center dc and the first and last stitches of a row). via Lion Brand's Reading Charts page

via Smart Knitting-Crocheting (Pattern 4) The dc clusters go in the chain space. The sc goes in the stitch directly below it.

Maybe one of these days I'll make a pattern that'll be well suited to charting. There's computer programs to help make them, but until I'm making them regularly, I think I'll wait on that.
Happy chart reading!