Abbreviations and slang abound in the crochet/crafting world. Pattern writers mostly use abbreviations and if you look at e.g. Instagram feeds you can easily get puzzled – especially if you’re new to both crochet and social media. So I decided to dedicate a page especially to explaining some of these – and it also saves me from writing guidelines to the abbreviations used in my patterns in all my posts.
PATTERN ABBREVIATIONS UK TERMS:
- ss: slip stitch
- ch: chain
- ch sp: chain space
- dc: double crochet (US: single crochet)
- htr: half treble crochet (US: half double crochet)
- tr: treble crochet (US: double crochet)
- dtr: double treble crochet (US: treble crochet)
- trtr: treble treble crochet
For some reason (which I haven’t really researched, but will one day) there are different terms for the stitches in the UK and the US. I work in UK terms as this is where I live, but I can actually see the logic behind the US terms better when you look at what you actually do when making the stitch. As you can see below some of the stitches are called the same, but are different stitches, which can change the outcome of a pattern quite a bit if you get them mixed up! All my patterns are written out in UK terms unless otherwise stated.
UK TO US TERMS:
- ss: slip stitch = US: slip stitch (ss) – can also be abbreviated sl st or slp st
- ch: chain = US: chain (ch)
- ch sp: chain space = US: chain space (ch sp)
- dc: double crochet = US: single crochet (sc)
- htr: half treble crochet = US: half double crochet (hdc)
- tr: treble crochet = US: double crochet (dc)
- dtr: double treble crochet = US: treble crochet (tr)
- trtr: treble treble crochet =US: double treble crochet (dtr)
OTHER CROCHET/KNITTING TERMS OR SLANG:
- Afghan: basically a blanket
- Frog: to unravel or rip back what you have done
- CAL: crochet along – a project by a group or designer which is released in stages and where people ‘crochet along’ with the releases
- C2C: corner to corner crochet
- FOTH: fresh off the hook
- HOTH: hot off the hook
- LYS: local or little yarn store
- STASH: yarn collection – have seen it as “special treasure all secretly hidden”
- TIA: thank you in advance
- UFO: unfinished project
- USO: unstarted project
- WIP: work in progress
