Crochet stitch count checker
(sc 4, inc) makes 6 stitches across 5, repeated 6 times = 36 made over 30.Where this page stops
Everything above is arithmetic on one round, and arithmetic is the easy half. The half that actually costs people an evening is continuity: whether round 14 is worked across the number round 13 really finished with, all the way down a pattern. A round can be perfectly correct on its own and still be impossible, because the round above it did not leave the right number of stitches to work into.
That is why a pattern gets read end to end before it is trusted, one round against the next, with every stated count reconciled against the instructions that produce it. It is the job a technical editor does on a pattern before it is published, and it is not something a single text box can do for you.
Wovely does that work on a whole pattern: rounds in sequence with none missing or duplicated, every stated count reconciled against the instructions that produce it, and no reference to a round that is not there. This page will always check one round for free, because that is what you came here for.
How to read the two numbers
Every round has an input and an output. Worked across is the input: how many stitches of the previous round this one consumes. Stitches made is the output: how many you will have when the round is finished, and the number the pattern puts in brackets at the end.
A plain stitch takes one and makes one, so those two numbers match and the count holds steady. An increase takes one and makes two. A decrease takes two and makes one. Every shaping round is just those three facts added up.
That is why the input number is the useful one. If a round will not come out right, the usual cause is not the round you are staring at but the one before it, which finished with a different number of stitches than you thought. Checking what this round needs to be worked across tells you immediately which round to go back and recount.
What it reads, and what it refuses
- It reads bracketed repeats such as
(sc 4, inc) x 6and[2 dc, ch 1] 8 times, asterisk repeats with a stated number, counts written either way round (sc 4or4 sc), theN in next stincrease form,in next N sts,in each of the next N sts, the2togdecrease family, skips, back and front loop placement, and stitches worked into a magic ring or a chain space. - A magic ring makes stitches out of nothing.
6 sc in magic ringmakes six and works across zero, because there is no round below it to use up. The same goes for a stitch worked into a chain space rather than into a stitch. - Every stitch around depends on the round below.
sc in each st aroundmakes exactly as many stitches as the previous round finished with. It is not one stitch, and it is not a guess. The page asks you for that number and then answers exactly. - Chains are reported separately. A chain is not a stitch of the round in the sense the bracketed count means, and mixing them in is a common reason a lace round appears not to add up when it is fine.
- If it cannot read a term, you get no number at all. Not a number with a footnote, and not a total that quietly skipped part of the round. The term it could not read is named and the result is withheld, because a count that is confidently wrong sends you back to unpick work that was correct.
Common questions
Why will it not just give me a number for every round?
Because a number you cannot trust is worse than no number. If the page cannot read one term of a round, its total is missing whatever that term produced, and you have no way of knowing by how much. A total that is silently short is the failure that sends you back through work that was already correct.
My round does not match the count the pattern states. Which one is wrong?
Check the worked-across figure first. If it does not match what the previous round finished with, the pattern is not the problem and the round below is where to recount. If it does match, then either the repeat count or the stated total in brackets is a typo, and the arithmetic above tells you which of the two the instructions actually support.
Can I paste my whole pattern in?
Not here. This page checks one round at a time, which is a different job from reading a pattern end to end and reconciling every round in it against the counts it states. That second job is what Wovely does.
Does it work on UK patterns?
The arithmetic does. A UK htr and a US hdc both take one stitch and make one, so the two numbers come out the same either way. If you want the terms themselves converted, the UK to US converter will do a whole pattern at once.
This page checks the round in front of you. What it cannot tell you is whether the pattern holds together across all of them, which is where a miscounted pattern really goes wrong and why a bad round can sit undetected for an hour of work. Wovely reads a whole pattern at once and checks that the rounds run in sequence with none missing or duplicated, that the count each round states matches the instructions that produce it, and that nothing refers to a round that is not there.