Hello! I have been picking up my crochet hook a lot more recently. After feeling saddened by the loss of Marinke, I bought some of her mandala patterns and enjoyed the creative process and meditation from growing steadily from the centre outwards in symmetry, balance, colour and texture.

Summer Hearts Mandala and Petals & Picots Mandala
I searched my bookcase and took down the “Compendium of Crochet Techniques” by Jan Eaton. This is written using British UK terminology which as a Brit, should be great. Trouble is, the patterns by Marinke and on various websites I have looked at have used US pattern terminology. In fact, US terminology seems the most prevalent and – dare I say it – it makes a little more sense! Jan Eaton’s book is a treasure trove of techniques and I was pleased I packed is as my holiday reading. However, the UK/US conversion chart appears to contain mistakes, including the abbreviations for these terms. Confusing!

Anyway, I am happy to have found this very useful conversion chart complete with symbols which, as yet, remain a mystery to me: Crochet Stitch Summary Chart. Thank you, dear crochet blogger, I do hope you don’t mind me sharing!

I dedicate most of my time to following knitting patterns but I feel ready to take some of the long summer holiday to master crochet and to follow crochet patterns more confidently.

Happy crochet!