Single, Double / Toil and Trouble

Imagine, if you will, you’re browsing through the magazine racks at your favorite bookstore, and you come across Inside Crochet, Great Britain’s only all crochet magazine.  The magazine is beautiful and one or two of the patterns really catch your attention.  So you do what any of us would do:  you buy the magazine and then head straight to a yarn store to purchase yarn for at least one of the projects featured.

Several weeks later, after you’ve finished, say three of the twelve partially completed projects you’ve been working on, you decide to start that new project that you found in that wonderful magazine you picked up the other day.  You rummage around your yarn room (or for some of us – your yarn house) until you find the bag containing the magazine and the yarn you bought.  It takes you a few minutes to figure out which of the designs you’d chosen, but finally, you’re sitting in your favorite chair, pattern, yarn, hook, stitch markers, light and other supplies laid out just the way you like them, your movie (or audio book) ready to play, and then it’s the magic moment:  embarking on a new crochet project.  Is there anything more delicious?

You begin the gauge swatch.  Using the hook recommended, you get the correct number of stitches per inch, but your row count is way off.  You try several different hooks, and finally, you even choose a yarn from your stash instead of using the yarn you bought for the project.  But no matter how many times you try, you cannot get the right row count.  Finally, you decide it must be a mistake in the pattern.  You go back to your original yarn and hook, and begin the project.  After all, your stitch count is correct, right?  

You pop the movie in and begin.

As you’re working, you begin to sense that something is wrong.  Your work doesn’t look anything like the photos in the magazine.  Your piece is much longer than it should be.  Let’s say you’re making a short-sleeved shrug.  If this keeps up, it will look more like a long-sleeved cardigan when you’re done.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble.

What do the Brits mean when they say double?

An excellent question, Grasshopper.   Following is a table that provides a glimpse into these two ways of describing crochet.  For some commonly used crochet stitches, this table provides the international crochet symbol, the American abbreviation and name for the stitch, the British abbreviation and name for the stitch, and a description of the stitch.

So, why all the confusion?  Why the difference?  Why is life so complicated?  Why can’t I fit into last summer’s jeans?  Why do I always run into my ex when I look my worst?

It seems to me that, putting aside the slip stitch and the chain stitch, Americans regard “yarnover and pull up a loop,” and everything that comes before that step, as preparation for the actual stitch.  Everything that comes after “yarnover and pull up a loop” is the actual stitch.  So, if I’m working a single crochet, for example, I insert my hook into the stitch; I yarnover and pull up a loop; and then I’m ready to work the stitch, which comprises one yarnover and pulling through both loops on hook.  One yarnover = one SINGLE crochet. 

Brits, on the other hand, begin counting with the initial “yarnover and pull up a loop.”  So what Americans consider a SINGLE Crochet becomes a DOUBLE crochet, because first one must yarnover and pull up a loop (one yarnover), and then yarnover and pull through both loops on hook (two yarnovers).

In my classes, some students find that the British terminology makes much more sense, because, they reason, it includes all the yarnovers.  But I prefer the American terminology, and here’s why:

British terms do not take into account the yarnovers that come BEFORE the “yarnover and pull up a loop” step.  It’s easy enough to see how single crochet becomes double crochet in Brit-world.  There are two yarnovers, so it’s a double.  But what about a double crochet?  To work a double crochet, you yarnover (one), insert hook into stitch, yarnover (two) and pull up a loop, yarnover (three) and pull through two loops, and finally yarnover (four) and pull through last two loops.  That’s four, count ‘em, four yarnovers in total.  So shouldn’t it be called a Quadruple Crochet?  It seems rather arbitrary to me to begin counting with the yarnover and pull up a loop step.

If, however, I’d learned to crochet in, say, Liverpool, while watching Johnny and the Quarrymen morph into the Fab Four, I’d probably think it’s arbitrary to begin counting after the yarnover and pull up a loop step.  It would probably feel natural to me to start counting at the yarnover and pull up a loop step.  All in all, it’s simply a matter of what one sees as preparation for the stitch and what one sees as working the actual stitch.

The important thing to remember is that there are many lovely patterns written in the British style, and many in the American style.  It’s really not that difficult to translate one to the other, so whichever terminology you’re using, don’t let the fact that a pattern is written in the other terminology intimidate you.  If you like a pattern you find in Inside Crochet – go for it!