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What is overlay mosaic crochet?#

The core idea#

Overlay mosaic crochet is a colorwork technique where you work with two (or more) colors of yarn one row at a time, and "dropping into" previous rows to create geometric or graphic patterns.

What Cromo Cloud supports#

Being honest about the boundaries:

Cromo Cloud supports classic two-color mosaic crochet. Two colors, alternating one row at a time. Of course you could choose to swap color at any moment while following the pattern, but you would need to keep track of color changes yourself, as the tool only indicates 2 distinct colors.

There are two main techniques used in mosaic crochet: flat or in the round. Cromo Cloud only supports one of them: flat crochet, which progresses row by row.

Pattern size is restricted to 500x500 stitches. The designer tool is a smart drawing application, instantly recalculating required stitch types as you draw. Larger patterns would ask too much CPU power. No worries, with this maximum size you can create a very large blanket...

CromoViewer is the go-to helper tool for crocheting patterns designed with CromoDesigner. It eliminates the need for any printed text or charts. However, CromoDesigner still offers the possibility to create written patterns and grid-like charts for those who don't want to go digital.

The stitch types supported by Cromo Cloud are listed here

How Cromo Cloud represents a pattern#

  • The grid — a 2D grid of cells. Each cell belongs to a row and a column, and represents one stitch of a certain stitch type.
  • Color assignments — Cromo Cloud supports two-color mosaic. Regularly referred to as Color A or Color B, we prefer the terms 'design color' and 'background color'. Every row alternates between those two colors.
  • Symbol overlay — symbols can be displayed on top of the cells, that tell the crocheter what kind of stitch to make (single crochet, double crochet, border stitch etc.)

When CromoViewer renders a pattern, it combines all three to show what you should see at each step. The completed section shows the final colors. The section you still need to complete shows the stitch symbols. A large text shows how many stitches of a certain stitch type are next.