Scan a crochet pattern into rounds you can tick off

Last updated 15 August 2026

Yarn Diary reads written crochet patterns. Photograph a printed page, drop in a PDF, or paste the text — it becomes parts and rounds, and every round is checked against the stitch count the pattern prints. Free, no account, and the reading happens in your browser: your pattern is never uploaded anywhere. Try it now — pasting a pattern takes about ten seconds.

What "reading a pattern" means here

Crochet patterns are compact and idiosyncratic: Rnd 2: inc x6 (12) means one thing, (sc, inc) 6 times another, Rnds 4–9: sc around six more rounds. Yarn Diary parses that notation properly rather than just splitting lines:

Round labels in most styles — Rnd 4:, Round 4, R4., 4)
Repeats — brackets, asterisks, ×6, rep 6 times
Ranges — Rnd 5–8 expands into the individual rounds, with shaping recomputed per round
US and UK abbreviations, detected automatically
Magic rings, increases, decreases, chains, back/front loop notes, designer asides
Multi-part patterns — Head, Body, "Legs (make 2)" become separate tracked parts

A worked example

You paste this

HEAD
Rnd 1: 6 sc in magic ring (6)
Rnd 2: inc x6 (12)
Rnd 3: (sc, inc) x6 (18)
Rnds 4-6: sc around (18)
Rnd 7: (sc, dec) x6 (11)

Yarn Diary shows this

1	6 sc in magic ring	6
2	inc x 6	12
3	(sc, inc) x 6	18
4–6	sc around	18
7	(sc, dec) x 6	11	⚠ instructions make 12 — check this round

Round 7 is the point of all this: (sc, dec) x 6 over 18 stitches produces 12, but the pattern printed (11) — a typo. Yarn Diary derives each round's count from the instructions themselves and compares it with the printed one, so the mismatch is flagged before you save the pattern, not discovered at round 40 when the ear won't close.

My stitch count doesn't match the pattern — is it me?

Sometimes it isn't you. Published patterns contain typos: a printed count off by one, a repeat written once too many, a range that quietly absorbs a round. Pasting the pattern into the checker answers the question in seconds — if the instructions and the printed count disagree, the round is flagged and you know the pattern is at fault. If they agree and your piece still doesn't match, the usual suspects are a missed increase at the start of a round or an accidental extra stitch at the end of one.

Scanning photos and PDFs

The camera and PDF paths run text recognition first, then the same parser. Recognition happens inside your browser tab — the pattern image is never sent to a server, ours or anyone's. Scans of clean printed pages work well; handwriting and very ornate fonts are hit-and-miss, and anything the recogniser garbles lands in the same review screen where every round can be edited before saving. Nothing is stored until you confirm the list.

What it costs

Nothing. The scanner, the checker and the tracker are all part of a free app with no account and no subscription. A pattern you paste stays yours, on your device.