Do Americans have different ideas about patterns?

Hi everyone,

I’m a little confused right now.
I don’t actually buy patterns that often myself, but I just went ahead and bought some from well-known American designers, and now I’m a bit overwhelmed...
These are crochet patterns for clothing. The description said: “Sizes XS through XXXL.”
However, only one size is described (with no measurements), and for all other sizes, I’m supposed to just use smaller or larger crochet hooks accordingly.

Umm… well, some of these designers have sold tens of thousands of patterns and have amazing reviews!

But I’M AN ARTIST! I CAN’T work like that! :-))))

All joking aside—what do you think of this? Is this normal in the U.S.?

In general, I’ve always noticed the difference here in Germany. Knitting patterns don’t require nearly as much fuss as crochet patterns. With crochet, you have to take a whole photo encyclopedia—or even make a YouTube tutorial—for every single stitch, no matter how small. You don’t see that at all in most knitting patterns. They just use the standard stitch abbreviations (not some made-up ones), maybe a knitting chart at most, and everyone’s still happy ;-)

Well, I’m off to do some gauge swatches now, just in case I end up crocheting a sweater after all...

Hey there.... How far along are you with your gauge swatch?
Well, so far I’ve only crocheted one blanket using an American pattern, and it was actually a bit more complicated than following a “German” pattern—but that was mostly because the “terms” are different there. There are UK or US terms… and actually, they’re “fixed,” just like they are here (single crochet, etc.)… It’s just that they’re named differently over there.
And what you’re saying about your pattern can happen here in Germany, too. But why is such a big distinction made between crocheting and knitting? 🤔 Maybe because, unlike in knitting, you don’t have fixed “insertion points” when crocheting.... In knitting, you have the stitches on the needle, and you can only “work” them. In crocheting, you can skip a stitch, etc....
  I don’t think this has anything to do with the “origin” of the patterns; it’s just that someone didn’t put in the “effort” to work out the promised sizes properly. I don’t think you can turn a size XS into an XXL just by changing the hook size.... You do that by adjusting the number of stitches, and in this size range, it’s not done by changing the hook size....
  Otherwise, you’d have to crochet size XS with filet yarn and a size 1 hook, and XXL with a size 8 hook and bulky yarn????
That’s a bit weird.
I hope you manage to figure it out anyway.
Best, Stephanie