What Crochet Patterns Can Teach Us About Writing Better Instructions

Joni Smith — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 07:23:32 +0000

When I started looking at crochet patterns from a more technical perspective, I noticed something interesting: a well-written crochet pattern has a lot in common with good technical documentation.

A crochet pattern isn't just a list of stitches. It is a set of instructions that needs to be interpreted consistently by another person. If one step is unclear, the final result can be very different from what the designer intended.

That sounds surprisingly familiar to anyone who writes code or documentation.

Repetition is the equivalent of a loop Crochet patterns frequently contain instructions such as:

Repeat rows 3–6 four times.

For a crocheter, this is simply a way of avoiding unnecessary repetition.

For a programmer, the idea is immediately recognizable: instead of writing the same operation over and over, we describe the repetition once and specify how many times it should happen.

The same principle applies to technical documentation. If a process contains repeated steps, documenting the pattern can be much clearer than duplicating the same instructions.

Abbreviations act like a small syntax Crochet patterns commonly use abbreviations for stitches and actions.

For example:

sc = single crochet

dc = double crochet

ch = chain

sl st = slip stitch

These abbreviations make patterns shorter, but they only work when the reader understands the vocabulary.

Programming works in a similar way. Developers can read relatively compact code because they understand the syntax and conventions behind it.

For beginners, however, unexplained abbreviations can make either a crochet pattern or a codebase difficult to understand.

That's why good documentation should define its terminology before relying heavily on it.

A pattern needs to be tested A pattern can look correct to its creator and still contain a problem.

Maybe a stitch count is wrong. Maybe an instruction is ambiguous. Maybe the finished shape doesn't match the intended dimensions.

This is why crochet designers test their patterns.

The same principle applies to software documentation.

If you write a setup guide, someone else should ideally follow it from a clean environment. If they get stuck because one step is missing, the documentation needs improvement.

In both cases, the real test is not:

"Does this make sense to the person who wrote it?"

The better question is:

"Can another person follow it successfully?"

The finished object is the output There is another interesting similarity.

With software, we write instructions and expect a particular output.

With crochet, we follow instructions and expect a particular object.

For example, when working on a structured bag design, the pattern may specify particular stitch counts, row sequences, dimensions, and construction steps. Changing one of those variables can affect the final shape.

That makes crochet an interesting physical example of deterministic instructions.

Good instructions reduce cognitive load Whether you're explaining an API or a crochet project, the reader shouldn't have to constantly guess what you meant.

Useful instructions generally have:

Clear terminology

Consistent formatting

Logical ordering

Explicit assumptions

Repeatable steps

Expected results

This is something I have become much more conscious of while working with crochet patterns.

For example, I recently worked on a ribbed crochet bag pattern PDF, where the construction relies on creating a structured ribbed texture and following the instructions consistently across the project.

The actual craft is very different from programming, but the documentation mindset is surprisingly similar.

What developers can learn from craft instructions
I think there is a useful lesson here for anyone who writes technical documentation.

A good instruction set doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to be predictable.

Whether the reader is:

running a command,

configuring an API,

following a tutorial,

or making something by hand,

the goal is the same: remove unnecessary ambiguity between the instructions and the expected result.

Crochet patterns gave me an unexpectedly practical way to think about documentation, testing, repetition, and user experience.

I'm curious whether other developers have hobbies where the same principles show up outside programming.

DEV Community: Joni Smith

What Crochet Patterns Can Teach Us About Writing Better Instructions