How to Read a Crochet Chart: Graphgan, Tapestry & C2C

One square, one stitch

In a graphgan or tapestry chart every square is one stitch, usually single crochet, and its colour is the yarn you use. In a corner-to-corner (C2C) chart every square is one tile: a chain-3 space with three double crochets.

Bold lines every ten squares make counting easier, and the numbers along the edges are your row and stitch counts.

Start at the bottom, and turn

Row 1 is the bottom row. When you work flat and turn, right-side (RS) rows are read from right to left and wrong-side (WS) rows from left to right — the same direction your hook is travelling.

That’s why written instructions for a row can look “backwards” compared with the chart: they list colours in the order you meet them.

Reading a C2C graph

C2C starts in one corner — SoraStitch charts use the bottom right — and grows diagonally. Row 1 is a single tile, row 2 has two, and so on. While a row still reaches the bottom and right edges you increase at both ends; once it has passed an edge you decrease there instead.

Each diagonal is read in the direction you work it, alternating up and down as you turn.

Colour changes

Change colour on the last yarn-over of the stitch before the new colour starts, so the new colour is complete from its first stitch. Long runs of one colour are easiest; lone single stitches mean two changes each, which is why SoraStitch tidies them away when it builds a chart.