How to read a chart when knitting in the round?
In my patterns, you should always read the diagram in the knitting direction, i.e. from right to left, bottom to top, unless otherwise stated.
You repeat the diagram as many times as you need to cover the entire garment, or the part of the garment that will have the pattern. Unless otherwise stated, you always start with the stitch in the bottom right corner.
How to read a chart when knitting back and forth?
From the right side, the diagram is read from right to left.
From the reverse side, the diagram is read from left to right.
In several patterns there are blank squares or large crosses, this means that there are no stitches there, then you should just skip reading it as zero/no stitches. This is because these are stitches that come later, such as in the thumb gusset for seal mittens. Here there are increases on the thumb gusset that become more and more as the knitting grows.
The same thing happens in decreases, when the stitches disappear and then they are gone.