UK to US crochet term converter
Why doing this by hand goes wrong
The two dialects do not use different abbreviations. They use the same abbreviations for different stitches. UK dc is US sc. US dc is UK tr. That overlap is the whole problem.
Work down a UK pattern with a chart and you change every dc to sc. Then you reach a tr and change it to dc. Your pattern now contains two kinds of dc: the ones you already converted and the ones you just created. Go back over it and you convert the new ones a second time. One pass, done by a person, quietly corrupts the document.
This page reads every term once, maps it once and writes it once, so a converted stitch is never re-read. That is the only reason it is safe to run on a whole pattern at a time.
UK to US crochet terms chart
The two stitch ladders are offset by exactly one rung. Every UK stitch name means the stitch one step shorter in US terms.
| UK term | UK abbr. | US term | US abbr. |
|---|---|---|---|
| slip stitch | ss | slip stitch | sl st |
| chain | ch | chain | ch |
| double crochet | dc | single crochet | sc |
| half treble | htr | half double crochet | hdc |
| treble | tr | double crochet | dc |
| double treble | dtr | treble crochet | tr |
| triple treble | trtr | double treble | dtr |
| quadruple treble | quadtr | triple treble | trtr |
| yarn round hook | yrh | yarn over | yo |
| miss | miss | skip | sk |
| tension | tension | gauge | gauge |
The two shaded rows are the stitches that mean the same thing in both dialects. Chain and slip stitch never change, which is why a pattern made only of those two gives you no clue which dialect it was written in.
What this converter does not do
- It changes names, not instructions. Stitch counts, repeats, row numbers and shaping are left exactly as written. A UK pattern converted to US terms is the same pattern, spelled differently.
- It cannot read a picture. If your pattern is a photo, a scan or a chart made of symbols, there is no text for it to convert. Paste the written rows.
- It will not guess the direction for you when the text is ambiguous. A row like
3 dc, ch 2, 3 dcis valid in both dialects and means two different things. When there is no unambiguous term anywhere in the text, the page says so and leaves the choice to you, because converting the wrong way round turns a granny square into something twice the height. - Post stitches assume the pattern is consistent. Some designers writing in UK terms still use the US names for front and back post stitches. If your pattern does that, check those rows yourself.
- It tells you when it has missed something. After every pass the output is checked against a separate list of vocabulary that belongs to the dialect you are converting from. Anything from that list still sitting in the output is named above the result, because a count of successful changes is not the same as an account of what happened to your document.
Common questions
How do I tell whether a pattern is written in UK or US terms?
Look for a term that only exists in one of them. htr, dtr, miss and tension only appear in UK patterns. sc, hdc, skip and gauge only appear in US ones. If the pattern uses sc anywhere, it is US. If it uses htr anywhere, it is UK. Paste it above and the page will point at whichever markers it found.
What is UK dc in US terms?
UK double crochet (dc) is US single crochet (sc). This is the single most common mix-up, because both dialects have a stitch abbreviated dc and they are two rungs apart in height.
Is a UK treble the same as a US treble?
No. UK treble (tr) is US double crochet (dc). US treble (tr) is UK double treble (dtr). The word treble appears in both ladders one rung apart, which is why it catches people out even more often than dc does.
Does the hook size or yarn change when I convert the terms?
No. Terminology and materials are unrelated. A UK pattern converted to US terms uses the same hook, the same yarn and the same tension. If your finished piece is coming out the wrong size, that is a gauge problem, not a terminology one.
Is my pattern uploaded anywhere?
No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser. Your pattern text is never sent to a server and never stored, and closing the tab discards it. To be exact about what does leave: Wovely counts that this page was viewed, the same as any website counts a visit, and screen recording is switched off on this page so that nothing you paste can be captured. The privacy policy covers the rest.
That is the part this page cannot help with. Wovely is the app for it: keep your patterns in one place, tick off rows as you go, and open your phone to the row you actually stopped on rather than the one you think you stopped on.