For the last three weeks or so that I’ve been working on my Advent scarf, I’ve been using a book as a reference. The book is really well written. Every motif, fabric and edging has both written instructions and a chart, along with full color pictures.

Well, I’ve never been able to read charts. It’s like looking at a foreign language. None of made sense to me. That meant that I was limited to patterns that were written – not charted. I’d encounter patterns written in Japanese online, with charts in the typical crochet symbols. However, since charts were useless to me, I couldn’t use them.

As I’d been working my way through the book, however, the charts began to make sense. Slowly, but surely, I’ve reached the point where I can just glance at the chart and follow that to make the pattern. It’s like this book was a Rosetta Stone for me, giving me the intermediate step between English and the secret language of Crochet! It makes me want to find those patterns I’d passed on before and save them to work on later.