(Of course, that might be perfect for your character. Use whatever works for you!)

As an amigurumi designer who loves making dolls, this has thrown a wrench into my usual calculus for my favorite yarn to use. Of course, crocheting amigurumi means that I need a wide color palette, since switching brands of yarn can introduce all sorts of new variables. However, the biggest problem is that many yarns do not have suitable skin color options, meaning that if you want to make a doll, you might have to go out and rebuy a lot of colors.

Because of this issue, I decided to create this huge tutorial on various skin color yarns that are perfect for amigurumi dolls.

As a general rule, Hobbii Amigo has the best skin color yarn for making amigurumi dolls, with both light and darker tones. Use Light Peach for a fair skin tone and Walnut or Chocolate for darker skin tones. WeCrochet Brava is a great back up choice as well.

Keep in mind that colors appear differently based on how you see the world and how your computer screen is set up. Different screen settings may change how the colors appear to you, which can cause some annoyance if you receive a color that you expected to be darker or lighter.

It is always best to look at yarn in person, since you won’t be tricked with digital screens that way, but not everyone has that option. Don’t worry! I’m here with some of my recommendations of skin tone yarns to help point you in the right direction.

As a general rule (with me assuming you are planning an amigurumi while you are here), the best yarn to make amigurumi with is acrylic or cotton. I like using sport weight yarn because it helps my amigurumi look cuter and neater.

You can use any yarn weight you would like. In my list, I have recommended sport, light worsted (DK), and worsted weight yarns.

Cotton allows for crisp, sturdy stitches. Acrylic is softer and the most cost effective yarn. Pick whichever one you prefer! I like and use acrylic the most, so the majority of my recommendations will be for acrylic yarns.

The options I go over today will include a range of skin tones, from lighter to darker.

Here is a list of all the yarns I talk about at a glance:

Amigo (Hobbii)

This is my go-to yarn when it comes to skin tones. My absolute favorite tone is Light Peach (A46), which you will see on many, if not most, of my dolls.

While it is listed as a light worsted or DK weight yarn, I personally think it is closer to a sport weight than a light worsted weight. It is perfect for creating palm-sized dolls, especially if you follow any of my patterns (built to be small and cute!).

While I love love LOVE using Light Peach, Amigo doesn’t have the largest gradient. Sand, while a bit too grayish for my tastes, could be another light skin tone if you are looking for something less pink or white.

Dark Beige and Walnut are good candidates for darker skin tones, but they lack the full bodied warmness that might be more suitable for a skin tone.

I don’t personally see myself branching out beyond my lovely Light Peach, at least for skin tones. Beyond that, Amigo has a huge collection of bright colors that would be perfect for clothing or anything else!

You can see examples of Amigo Light Peach on nearly all of my dolls, such as Juliet the Mini Doll and Carmen the Mini Doll. In the materials, it might be listed as ‘beige’ but it is still Light Peach! For examples of other bright colors, you can check out my Leprechaun pattern (he still uses Light Peach for his body).

Brava Sport (WeCrochet)

Brava Sport is by far my most favorite acrylic yarn. If I could use it for everything, I would! In general, I prefer using sport weight to create smaller, cuter, neater dolls and amigurumi.

Even though this is also listed as a sport weight yarn, Brava reads more as a worsted weight versus Hobbii Amigo (another reason why it’s difficult to mix and match yarn colors).

It is an affordable, high quality acrylic yarn. It is soft (unlike many acrylic yarns) and has a great stitch definition. Plus, it is inexpensive!

You wouldn’t know that when you use it. It feels as if you spent a full ten dollars on just one skein, but you didn’t. It’s a steal!

It also has a huge collection of colors to choose from, but it only has one fair skin tone: Cream.

I have used Cream before, but it is not my go-to skin tone color. I find it a bit too pale for my dolls as it seems to err more on the whiter side of things in my opinion. In the above photo, However, if I ever run out of my absolute favorite Light Peach (Amigo from Hobbii), Brava’s Cream is my backup color.

In the photo below, you can see how the two skin tones compare. Jackie (right) is still really adorable, but her skin has the whitish tinge characteristic of WeCrochet Brava whereas the Sugar Plum Fairy has a rosier beige.

However, because of its huge collection of colors, Brava Sport has a few great colors that would work for darker skin: Almond, Brindle, Sienna, and Umber Heather. This makes Brava Sport a very strong contender for those who see themselves frequently needing a larger gradient of skin tones to work with. Brava Sport is also one of the best color palettes out there for amigurumi yarn since the selection is so large, so you can’t go wrong here!

You can see examples of Cream for the body and Almond for the hair in my Sugar Plum Fairy and Jacqueline the Cellist patterns. With Julie the Bear Girl, you can see examples of Cream for the body, Almond (or Dark Beige) for the clothing, and Chocolate for the hair.

Below is Angelica, a doll I’ve made using Almond for the base doll.

Below is Angelica, a doll I’ve made using Almond for the base doll.

Brava Worsted (WeCrochet)

If you like Brava yarn but would rather use a heavier weight than sport, why don’t you check out Brava Worsted’s collection? While I like using sport yarn the most, that does not mean I can’t recommend worsted weight yarn!

Since I love Brava Sport so much, Brava Worsted has to be included for those who like their amigurumi to be a bit bigger. This particular yarn has about 5 more skin tone colors to choose from than Sport, which is fantastic.

There are a few more color choices for tan and darker skin tones, such as Espresso, Gingerbread, and Carob. They still have Cream available, but not much beyond that for fair skin tones without dipping into a pinkish or blueish leaning color.

If I ever needed to make a doll in worsted weight yarn, Brava Worsted would be the one I would choose. That’s how much I love it!

Friends Cotton 8/8 (Hobbii)

As with many Hobbii yarns, there are a plethora of colors to choose from, ranging from white all the way to some of the brightest oranges or yellows you have ever seen. However, because of this, they’ve also created some great skin tone yarns.

This is another 100% cotton yarn, so please keep that in mind when checking this one out! Many people have said that it is one of the softest cotton yarns they have ever worked with.

They have a decent collection of fair skin and dark skin colors as well as bright colors for clothing for your dolls and more! If you enjoy Hobbii cotton yarn, this may be your best choice in the entire list.

It looks like they have three fair skin tones: Cream, Oatmilk, and Beige. That’s a decent collection!

I have not used this yarn before, but based on what I can see from the online store, their colors would not be the best fit for me.

In my opinion, their ‘Cream’ color is a bit too pink, ‘Oatmilk’ is a bit too white, and ‘Beige’ is that sort of pale brown that I think would look better for hair or neutral clothing pieces, so I’d probably pass on that.

I just want to mention that I am not trying to dissuade you from checking this yarn out if you’re interested – just because I personally don’t use it doesn’t mean that it is a bad yarn. It might work perfectly for you!

There are plenty of crochet artists who enjoy using this yarn, such as Once Upon a Cheerio. She has talked about her experience with it, which I have linked in case you would like to check out a detailed review from someone who enjoys this yarn.

Paintbox Simply DK (LoveCrafts)

While I personally haven’t had the honor of trying out this acrylic yarn (I have checked out its cotton yarn – it’s a good one), I know quite a few designers who enjoy it. I have heard that it’s surprisingly quite soft for an acrylic yarn.

What surprised me was the amount of yards (302) that came in one skein. I don’t know why it caught my eye, but that’s quite a good amount for the price. It’s a fairly inexpensive yarn, similar to Brava Sport.

It has oodles of different colors to choose from, but in terms of skin tones, there aren’t many realistic shades. However, it has more skin shades than Amigo from Hobbii!

For its fair skin tones, I think that Vanilla Cream and Light Caramel are the best options. Light Caramel may be on the orangey side for some people, though. I thought about including Champagne White in the list, but I think that’s a little too white for me.

For dark skin tones, Soft Fudge or Coffee Bean may work for you. Out of all the colors, in my opinion, these seem to be the most realistic in terms of skin tones.

Schachenmayr Catania (LoveCrafts)

Catania has quite a collection of colors for realistic skin tones, even if they weren’t originally meant for skin. In my opinion, it has about 4 fair skin tones, which is a solid amount to choose from!

As I’ve stated before, and will continue to say, everyone experiences colors differently, so you may see a color darker or lighter than I do, and that’s okay. This is just my experience!

The fair skin tones from Catania are Cream, Honig, Sand, and Bast. Cream (or beige as you may see me reference it in my patterns) is my favorite to use for my dolls.

Honig, while a bit on the orange side, is another decent choice if you’re looking for a peachy color for your doll’s body base. If you’re looking for something less orange and more light brown, Sand or Bast might fit the bill for you.

You can see examples of Cream in my patterns for the Little Prince and Kitsune the Fox Girl amigurumi. I love using this sport yarn to make my little dolls just four inches tall!

This is a 100% cotton yarn, so keep that in mind when choosing this yarn. Cotton tends to create sturdy items, but it feels and acts differently than acrylic, especially when getting washed. Make sure to read your labels!

Skein Tones (Lion Brand)

This collection of yarn boasts 17 different skin tones for you to choose from! These tend to lean towards darker skin tones, but there are some fair skinned tones included as well.

It is an incredibly versatile collection, including lovely peachy shades and soft orange tones that don’t look unrealistic. While they would clearly work for bodies of dolls, it is great for any item that needs a neutral shade.

This collection is great if you’re looking for a larger selection of skin tones. it is specifically catered towards those who wish they could have a specific color that looked more realistic. You won’t have to be stuck with that slightly-too-pink or that greenish-brown thanks to this collection.

I haven’t used it before, but I know that many people do like it! This is a worsted weight acrylic yarn, so it is a bit bigger than what I like to use. If you enjoy worsted yarn, this is a great yarn to test out!

These yarns are part of one of Lion Brand’s anti-pilling yarn families. Pilling is when friction and time balling up bits of the yarn to create little ‘pills’ on the outside of your creation.

It’s never fun when that happens. It can cause weakened areas, and it just doesn’t look great either. It can be annoying to fix. You won’t have to worry about any of that with anti-pilling yarns.

If you really like their anti-pilling yarn, they do have 52 colors available; these specific 17 are focused more on the neutral colors that would work for dolls (or anything else).

The post Best Skin Tone Yarns for Amigurumi Dolls (by a designer!) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

After exhaustive interviews with several full-time craft vendors here in the Seattle area, I’m ready to report back to you the good, bad, and the ugly on how to sell crochet items, where to sell, and essential tips you need to integrate into your strategy.

Can you make a living selling crochet at craft fairs?

Generally, it’s possible to make $100-500 per craft fair selling crochet items for a beginner. This amount increases if the craft fair is juried and in a wealthier area. Eventually, some crafters are able to make a full time income, up to about $80k a year.

This is obviously the first question that comes to mind when considering whether it’s worth it to start vending (selling) crochet items.

It’s very difficult to state a hard and fast rule for expected income, since every area in the US is different and not all crocheters are created equal, but for a beginner in their first year, it’s likely that you’ll make at least $100 per day at a craft fair, and maybe up to $500 if you hit the right combination of factors.

This is assuming that you’re vending in the lowest “tier” of craft shows, high school craft shows (we’ll talk about this more in depth later), and making small items that are priced at around $5-10 apiece.

This means that you probably won’t make back your time, but it’s a great way to try out vending and seeing whether you enjoy interacting with customers — as well as cranking out a ton of inventory.

In big cities that have a lot of competitive, juried craft fairs that attract a wealthier audience with more appreciation for handmade art, it’s certainly possible, given several years and a lot of hard work, to grow your business into a full time income — around $80k a year.

Do crochet items sell at craft fairs?

There is a large market for crochet items in major cities with higher income levels and an appreciation for handmade crafts. In smaller cities or rural neighborhoods with a lower average income, the market for handmade crochet items is much smaller.

Not everyone can afford to purchase handmade crochet items, so one of the biggest factors that goes into whether it’s possible to become a profitable crochet vendor is location.

Even if you’re the fastest crocheter in the world with beautiful creations, if the area you’re vending in is extremely low income, then the ceiling on your pricing will also be very low.

At a certain point, it’s not worth it to sell your crochet items, so it’s important to recognize when the location or another factor is holding you back.

Ideally, you’d be able to price your time at $20-25 dollars an hour to be able to make more income, so if you find that your creations aren’t selling or your customers seem put off by high prices, you should do some trial an error with different locations and craft fairs to see whether you can find the right audience.

Of course, when you’re first starting out, there could be a multitude of factors (that we’ll cover below) that could negatively impact profit, so be sure to keep putting yourself out there and slowly improve and tweak your process so that you can isolate whether the true issue is location or another factor.

What are the biggest factors that affect craft fair profits?

Location, seasonality, quality of craft show, and weather are the biggest factors that affect craft fair profits for crocheters. If any of these factors is unfavorable, then it can completely determine whether business is good or bad at any given craft fair.

Aside from location, there are many other factors that can make or break your craft show profits. Keep these in mind as you continue trying various craft shows, and know that it’s always a combination of factors that determines how well business is on any given day or location.

1. Seasonality

In the calendar year, some months are better for craft shows than others. The holiday season, from November to December, is the absolute peak time for selling handmade items, since customers are much more eager to buy gifts and more people will be out shopping. However, this also means that craft fairs will be more competitive to get into, so take that into consideration as well.

Conversely, the lowest period is January to March, immediately after the holiday season when most customers are recovering from the holidays.

The summer is better than the early months in the year, especially if you’re vending in summer street festivals that attract a lot of customers.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

2. Foot traffic

The amount of customers you have walking in the door of the craft fair is critical to the amount of profit you can expect to see.

Craft fair vendors generally estimate that a single booth can expect to have 1% of total customers buy from their booth, no matter what type of event it is. This means that if there are 13,000 people attending a show, you might except 130 to buy from you.

You can usually find expected foot traffic numbers or last year’s numbers from a craft show’s FAQ for vendors page.

Obviously this is not a hard and fast rule, but it’s a good rule of thumb to evaluate whether a given craft show is good for your goals at that time, as well as help you evaluate how well you’re doing at that show.

This rule of thumb generally means the more foot traffic a show has, the better.

However, often bigger shows could create more barriers, such as a high admissions fee or distance from your location, so know that starting smaller is often a good strategy, with the goal to go to bigger craft shows down the road.

3. Type of craft fair

So if bigger craft shows are better, should you just apply to the biggest craft show you can find in the area? Not necessarily!

Craft shows are not all created equal, and often bigger and more competitive craft fairs require a huge amount of preparation in advance.

A craft show that might be right for you when you’re just beginning is probably not going to be the right one for you a few years down the road.

With that in mind, let’s go over the types of craft fairs that exist and why you might choose a given one for your burgeoning craft business.

Here’s a quick chart to get started.

I also want to caveat that these numbers are from a few subjective experiences of crafters from one city who all primarily vend in and around a wealthy metropolis in the US. Your mileage may vary greatly, so take this with a grain of salt.

I’ve ordered the craft shows roughly in order of accessibility. However, accessibility and profitability are often at odds with each other; the craft shows with the highest fees also often end up being the most lucrative.

However, it creates a natural progression for the path a beginner to take. Even though a juried craft show might yield several thousand dollars of profit a day, obviously it’s not recommended or even possible for a complete beginner to get accepted to a craft show like that without a solid inventory and some experience.

The most profitable craft shows can still fall flat without the necessary experience, so it’s important to work your way up the ladder and slowly take more risks as you learn about the nuances of your specific location and what kinds of products do and don’t work.

Therefore, high school craft shows are the best place to cut your teeth and evaluate whether you’re capable of producing enough inventory – and fast enough – to fill up a whole booth, as well as learning some basic marketing and sales skills.

However, high school craft shows have a sort of built in ceiling on pricing, since the clientele might not be the most appreciative of handmade art, so if you find that you still aren’t able to turn enough of a profit despite your best efforts, it’s a good idea to try a farmers market and see whether you’re able to raise your prices.

A more exclusive craft show won’t redeem a poor setup or lack of inventory, so it’s really important to make sure that you have the basics down before you start applying for street fairs, juried shows, etc, that all come with a hefty booth fee that you won’t be able to get back.

4. Amount of competition

The amount of competition from similar vendors can take a huge toll on the amount of profit that you make at a craft fair.

Especially for crochet vendors, even just one other vendor selling crochet items can cause a 20%+ reduction in revenue, unless there’s a large difference in the type of crochet items that they are selling (e.g. if one person is selling hats and the other is selling amigurumi).

If there are multiple crochet vendors at a given craft fair, revenues will take a hit since there’s so much competition.

For this reason, high quality and juried craft shows tend to carefully limit the amount of vendors they let in for each craft, with a ceiling of 3-5 per craft, depending on which product line it is.

This results in much better sales for all who are accepted, and also creates a better experience for the customers who don’t want to be bombarded with ten booths of candles.

Further, if there are multiple big craft fairs or markets happening the same day, this can also impact sales since the same type of people tend to go to these events.

Organizers of craft fairs tend to be cognizant of this and will avoid scheduling fairs at the same time as others, but it’s still important to keep in mind.

However, craft fairs that are not as carefully controlled like street fairs or high school craft shows might not place a cap on how many vendors of each category are allowed, so this can result in variable profitability depending on the day.

5. Placement in the craft fair

Where your booth is located in the craft fair and also impact your performance that day. Craft shows tend to have a flow, with booths at the front and going down the middle enjoying the most amount of foot traffic, whereas those off to the side or in the back may get overlooked.

There’s another quirk as well, which is that in the US, people tend to turn right after walking in the doors, so if your booth is placed towards the right of the door, you may get more people walking by your booth.

On top of that, customers tend to be more attracted to booths that draw the eye with setups that are built up from the table with shelves or hangers.

They also tend to be more comfortable browsing booths when other customers are already there, so keep that in mind as you observe the flow of people at your craft show!

6. How fast you crochet

How fast you crochet is an element that could make or break how worthwhile it is to sell crochet items at craft fairs.

Eventually, it’s a good idea to set your pricing goal at $20-25/hour for your crochet items, so if it takes you many hours to simply crochet a keychain, then it will be extremely difficult to be able to reach this hourly “wage.”

It’s normal to crochet more slowly at first and then become faster as you become more experienced, and it’s also unrealistic to be able to immediately price your crochet items at $20-25/hour. However, it’s good to keep this number in mind as a sanity check for times when you feel like something is taking forever.

If you crochet products in an assembly line — crocheting 50 of the body, then 50 of the limbs, then 50 of the head, for example — this can speed up your process a lot. Since you group together the same steps, you’ll be able to generate a lot more crochet products this way.

Even at juried craft shows, experienced crochet vendors will sometimes introduce an item that ends up taking too long and only sells at a lower hourly wage. This is a good way to identify products that won’t work for you — the winners are quick projects that can sell for a higher price.

7. Type of customer

The demographics of your customers at a given craft show might be one of the biggest indicators of how much profit you can expect.

This is also tied to the type of craft show that you’re at, since different shows attract different types of people.

It’s extremely important to understand who your customers are. Successful crochet vendors target young professionals or wealthy college students with disposable income — people between 20-40 who are willing to spend ~$40 at a time on crochet items.

Part of being able to attract the right audience is branding yourself in the correct way. Those who see your products as kids’ toys will not be willing to pay as much as if your products are seen as handmade pieces of fiber art.

This is why you’ll see more luck with raising prices at craft fairs that draw a crowd that loves handmade products and is willing to spend more for them.

Craft shows that have an entrance fee to even attend will attract customers who value handmade products highly and are expecting higher prices.

High school craft shows might attract a customer base that’s bargain hunting or expecting flea market prices.

Areas that are more affluent will also attract a well heeled clientele, so some towns or cities that are low income may have a natural cap on how much a craft show vendor can make without traveling.

Generally, bigger and wealthier cities with exclusive craft shows will yield the best results, so keep in mind that eventually you may have to travel to another location for a higher quality craft show.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

What kinds of craft fairs are there?

There are four main kinds of craft fairs: high school craft shows, farmer’s markers, street festivals, and juried craft fairs. High school craft fairs are the least profitable and the most accessible, and juried craft fairs are the most lucrative but also the least accessible.

Craft shows are not all created equal, and often bigger and more competitive craft fairs require a huge amount of preparation in advance.

A craft show that might be right for you when you’re just beginning is probably not going to be the right one for you a few years down the road.

With that in mind, let’s go over the types of craft fairs that exist and why you might choose a given one for your burgeoning craft business.

I’m going to restate my amazing craft show chart from earlier in case you skipped down to this section!

I also want to caveat that these numbers are from a few subjective experiences of crafters from one city who all primarily vend in and around a wealthy metropolis in the US. Your mileage may vary greatly, so take this with a grain of salt.

All of these craft shows can be good for a vendor at different times in their vending career, so don’t discount one or the other because of its high admissions fee or its low earning potential.

You can learn something from all of them!

What are the best crochet items to sell at craft fairs?

Fast and easy crochet toys are the best items to sell at craft fairs. Ideally, vendors should be able to make them in an hour or two. Using chunky or bulky yarn will allow vendors to create a larger item in less time, and thus be able to charge more.

If you’re at a loss, check out some of the patterns below as well as my blog post all about the most eyecatching amigurumi you can make for craft fairs!

Also, keep in mind that safety eyes are not child safe, so if you’re making amigurumi, make sure you let all your customers know, or replace them with embroidered or glued on felt eyes.

1. Spring Bunnies

These lovely rabbits are just perfect for welcoming the Year of Rabbit!

The pattern provides detailed instructions and step-by-step pictures for some tricky parts.

I love that the creator also provides patterns for their accessories—the roses and carrot just add so much more personality to these cute buns!

You can also choose to customize the colors of your bunnies—gray, cream, or brown for realistic bunnies, pink or blue for fantastical ones!

2. Fluffle Teddy Bear

This sweet teddy bear will certainly draw the eyes of people at the craft fair! At first glance, most people won’t even realize this teddy bear has been crocheted!

Faux fur yarn can be a bit finicky to work with, but since it only requires single crochets, this is the right project for beginners to try it out!

And don’t worry! In the pattern tutorial, I’ve included many tips on how to work with faux yarn.

More like this:

• 20 Cutest FREE Crochet Baby Toy Patterns (for beginners!)
• 14 Quick and Easy Crochet Keychains for Bags (Stashbuster!)
• 12 Cutest Free Crochet Gnome Patterns (beginner friendly!)
• 9 Cutest Totoro Crochet Patterns (from Studio Ghibli!)
• 9 Fun Crochet Jellyfish Patterns!

3. Chubby Cat Amigurumi

Calling all the cat lovers to your booth!

These mini cats are the perfect size to sell as a keychain or bag charm! Or you can choose to make a larger version by substituting the yarn!

If you choose to use a jumbo-sized yarn, you might consider using sport yarn to embroider the stripes instead of embroidery floss.

The stripes surely add character, but if you find yourself short on time, you may choose to forgo them!

4. Jumbo Bee

This bee or a variation of it has made its rounds on Instagram and TikTok! You’ve probably seen it, and so will your potential customers!

The final size measures at 13 in. x 10 in. (33 cm x 25 cm), truly a jumbo-sized bee!

I love how the pattern provides an option to create felt eyes instead of the usual safety eyes! It really adds character to the bee.

5. Amigurumi Pumpkin

Save this pattern for when fall comes around again! Which is soon, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere!

These cute pumpkins will happily greet your customers!

If you crochet them using the recommended size and hook, you may choose to attach a chain and sell them as keychains!

Otherwise, you can upsize them and sell giant pumpkins instead.

6. Strawberry Bee

Here’s another bee for you! This pattern is by me and I’ve ensured that it’s easy to understand, even for beginners!

This strawberry bee would be absolutely delighted to join in your craft fair!

You can substitute the recommended colors with any colors you want! For instance, you can create a rainbow bee if you like!

More blog posts for amigurumi beginners:

• Easiest Crochet Whale for Absolute Beginners!

• My Foolproof Guide to Crocheting Amigurumi for Beginners
• What’s the best stuffing for amigurumi? (+ how to stuff!)
• How to Sew Amigurumi Parts Together (easy photo tutorial!)

7. No-Sew Amigurumi Octopus

Are you ready to host an army of squishy octopuses in your booth?

Well, ready or not, here they are!

Those eight cute little tentacles might intimidate you, but don’t discount this pattern just yet! It’s a no-sew pattern and the tentacles are made using a combination of chains and slip stitches.

Additionally, the creator has also included a handy video tutorial!

8. Amigurumi Donuts

This squad of donuts is just irresistible! A pig donut, a frog donut, a unicorn donut—what more can spice up your stand?

The pattern calls for a chunky yarn, which makes this project super fast to finish! Both written instructions and video tutorials are provided for the basic donut and each modification.

9. Amigurumi Fluffy Ghost

Boo!

You may want to save this pattern for Halloween … or not! Who says ghosts are only cool around that time of the year?

How much does it cost to start selling crochet at craft fairs?

It costs around $500 for a beginner to develop an attractive craft fair booth set up, including a canopy for outdoor shows. There is also a small cost for getting a business license, insurance for a booth, and booth fees at shows — all not including the inventory meant to be sold.

There are numerous costs associated with getting started on a crochet business. However, these can be mitigated and decreased if you choose to dabble at first just to see whether you like it.

1. Set up decor, stands, and racks: ~$500

In an ideal world where you want to get started on your business immediately and have some extra funds to do so, getting a great set up is key.

Generally, if your table or booth just looks like a table with some product thrown on top of it and looks like a yard sale, customers will expect yard sale prices.

Although this can be difficult to hear when we spend so much time on our crochet creations, it’s important to signal to customers that your products are valuable and true works of art.

The best way to do this is to create a set up with an attention to detail that matches that of your products, as well as getting your product off the table so that it’s at eye level.

The best way to build up and off the table is by using stands, racks, hangers, and boxes to create layers in your product so that your booth is arranged vertically from the table upwards instead of horizontally on top of the table.

You should also get a nice tablecloth, some lights to brighten up the space, and a price list (if you’re not using price tags).

If you’re selling outside at a farmer’s market or street fair, you’ll probably also have to bring your own canopy.

There are many types of canopies, but make sure you get one that you can put up with one push and doesn’t need multiple people to set up (also called an easy up canopy).

Eagle Peak Canopy and ABC Canopy are both good brands that are easily accessible and often used by craft fair vendors.

If you want some inspiration and tips from other craft fair vendors, this Facebook group is an excellent resource! (You’ll need a Facebook account to join).

These set up items can all add up to a couple hundred dollars. Of course, if you’re just getting started and aren’t 100% sure you will want to continue doing this, it’s totally okay to just get a tablecloth to start.

However, keep in mind that this kind of set up won’t attract the best customers, and always remember that there’s room to grow.

2. Business License: ~$100

This should not be construed as legal advice. Little World of Whimsy is not responsible for any action taken from these opinions.

Getting a business license is something that you’ll want to do as you continue your crochet business journey.

Strictly speaking, you should get a business license before you work your first show, but often many vendors at high school craft fairs might not have one — use your own judgment as to when in the process you want to get official, but if you’re serious about pursuing this long term, you should look into getting a business license for your state.

Also, you should collect sales tax on any purchases that are made, and having a business license enables you to do so.

3. Point of Sale software: 2% processing fee

Many customers don’t carry cash these days and prefer to pay with a card. If you want to take orders digitally, getting a point of sale software like Square or Clover makes it easy to accept credit card orders.

These two point of sale softwares are the most popular with small business vendors and often take a 2% fee on all purchases you make, but they also automatically collect sales tax for you.

Usually they will provide the card swipe hardware for a phone or iPad for free, and Square will allow you to purchase a contactless (NFC) payment gadget for $40 which can be useful for customers who want to use Google Pay or Apple Pay.

4. Craft Fair Insurance: ~$20/show

If you start vending at larger shows like farmers markets and street festivals, you might be required to purchase some sort of craft fair insurance to cover third party liability within your booth.

This is general liability insurance, which means that if someone falls inside your booth and hurts themselves, you’ll be able to use your insurance to cover their accident.

If you don’t have insurance, often craft fairs will allow you to purchase a one-day policy to cover you for their fair for a low fee of $10-20.

If you want to get your own insurance, you can choose to buy insurance on a pro-rated day to day basis for specific dates and fairs, or you can get insurance for a year for a discount (~$250).

Insurance usually only covers you for one state, so keep in mind that if you travel out of state to vend then you’ll need to get ad hoc coverage for that.

How do you price a crochet product?

Generally, crochet items should be priced at $20 an hour for maximum profitability. Beginners should start out at about $10 an hour. All crochet vendors should aim for small, fast projects like amigurumi, and cut out products that do not sell at this rate.

If you’ve read this far, then you probably know that pricing is dependent on a huge amount of factors and it’s extremely difficult to give a hard and fast rule for what you should price your items.

However, you should follow the general guidelines below to help inform your decision.

• As stated previously, your goal in a successful, sustainable crochet business is to sell items at $20-25 an hour after you’ve been in business for several years and are consistently selling at juried craft fairs in a more affluent area
• If you are unable to sell at juried craft fairs or there are none available, there is a lower cap on how high you can price your items and it means that you won’t be able to increase prices unless you start vending at more profitable craft fairs and/or go to a different location where those shows exist
• Everyone starts out with extremely low prices, at $5-10 per crochet item. These items will sell, but keep in mind that your goal needs to be to increase your prices eventually since it’s very difficult to make a lot of profit this way without burning out
• It’s often possible to sell small items like keychains for a little over the “hourly rate,” but you may also have to sell larger items for a little under your “hourly rate.” This can help balance out your products.
• It’s extremely important to make small and fast projects, as well as be a fast crocheter, since otherwise your hourly rate will result in extremely expensive items. Ideally, you could make a small keychain in an hour or so and larger items in a few hours.
• If your items don’t sell or customers say that they’re too expensive, keep in mind that the reason is often because you aren’t at the right craft fair. Generally, the better the craft fair, the higher you can raise your prices.
• However, if there are some items that just take too much time (e.g. blankets and wearable), it’s worth just taking them off your inventory list in favor of faster and smaller items that are within the range of your customers.
• Keep an eye on your average order value (AOV). This is the average amount that a customer spends at your booth. Since you can estimate how many customers you’ll get (~1% of total foot traffic), you can use this to estimate the amount of sales that you’ll make.
• Most craft vendors consider a “good day” to be when they make 10x the booth fee, but beginners may only 2x or 3x the booth fee. Keep this in mind as a pulse check for how well you’re doing on profit and whether you may need to consider increasing prices.

How do I start selling crochet items at craft fairs?

As a general rule, start selling crochet at craft fairs by trying out two to three shows at local high school craft fairs on the side. Charge around $5-10 apiece for these shows, but invest all your earnings into a nice set up and admissions fees for more profitable shows like farmers markets.

So, you’ve read this far and you want to know what the best strategy is for getting started.

As we’ve discussed earlier, the most “profitable” method is definitely not the easiest or the most beginner friendly. You won’t (and probably don’t want to) spend $300 on a booth fee at a juried craft fair right off the bat without any inventory or set up paraphernalia.

If I were starting a crochet business at craft fairs today, this is what I would do:

1. Scout out the high school craft fairs in my area and apply for one or two just to see whether I like the experience. Bring about 50-100 small, quick products (~ twice as much as you expect to sell) like amigurumi or dishcloths, and buy a simple tablecloth as set up. Bring a lot of five dollar bills and one dollar bills as change.
2. If I enjoy the experience, apply to more high school craft shows in the area. Invest all my profits into buying stands, racks, and hangers to make my display nicer and attract better customers. Get a point of sale software like Square to be able to accept credit card payments. Repeat at several other craft fairs over the course of a year. Spend all your time creating more inventory (make about 2x the amount that you expect to sell, empty booths are unattractive to customers).
3. At this point if things seem to be going well and you’re making 3-5x the booth fee, try applying to a farmers market nearby and see if you can raise your prices. Slowly build a brand by getting a banner, basic social media account that announces your upcoming shows, and business cards. Take photos of your set up and get ready to apply for some juried shows.
4. If this goes well, continue refining your booth and incrementally raising prices while scouting out juried shows in your area. If there are none, you may have to try a nearby city. Try a juried show to get a sense of the amount of competition and whether your booth set up is up to par. It may take several tries to get accepted at a juried show, and you may not get in every year even if accepted the first year.
5. Once you are consistently vending at juried shows, raise your prices so that your hourly rate is ~$20-25. Continue refining your schedule, inventory, and pricing and introduce seasonal projects.

I tend to be a more risk averse person, so while you could go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a craft fair set up, I tend to want to make sure that I can make money doing something first before investing money into it.

Also, you might not enjoy interacting with customers at all at craft fairs, or hate churning out huge amounts of inventory. It’s really important to understand yourself and whether this type of business suits you.

Eventually, if you keep vending at the same shows year after year, you’ll build up a small audience of people who expect to see you there. It’ll also get easier to predict how many sales you’ll make as well as what factors influence sales.

Unfortunately, if you’re in an area that doesn’t have a lot of high quality craft shows or are unable to travel, this business model might have severe limitations for you.

Being able to raise your prices is imperative to making a profit, and if high quality street festivals, farmers markets, or juried shows are nonexistent in your area it can be almost impossible to raise your prices to a level where you’re actually making any money.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

What are the downsides to selling crochet at craft fairs?

Although selling crochet items at craft fairs can be a great business for a serious hobbyist or someone wanting to make some extra income, there are always downsides.

The main issue is that income can be very variable. As covered earlier in this article, there are many, many factors that influence your performance at a given craft fair, from your placement to the type of people who come to the weather that day.

You could spent $200 on admission to a craft fair but have it completely ruined by rain, or you could try out a new craft fair only to realize that it’s the wrong type of customer for your products.

The other main obstacle with selling handmade crochet products is that not everyone will treat your products with the same care and value that you treat them.

Often comments from customers like “I can make that” or “I know someone who can make that” are common, and many will claim that your prices are too high even when you’re not even making minimum wage on your time.

Essentially, boothing at a craft fair is just like selling retail at a mall — you get a lot of different customers and people might not see you as a person whose feelings can get hurt.

Mean comments like this can really affect you, and though over time you learn to develop a thicker skin and also seek friendlier craft fairs, it’s still something to keep in mind.

For this reason, many people choose to sell online or pursue a different business model like blogging (check out how I made $1,000/month from blogging here), even though it takes more time.

It’s all up to you and you never know until you try!

I hope this blog post was helpful to all of you who want to make some side income on your hobby — feel free to reach out with more questions or read more about making money from crochet below!

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

The post Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs (expert tips) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

I’ve worked really hard to create a comprehensive guide below on all the basic shapes that I use when I design amigurumi.

You can use the quick pattern references below to help get you started as a baseline on a tricky shape, which you can then continue to modify.

If you crochet all of the shapes below, you will also develop a sense for how to shape your amigurumi on the fly.

Basic shapes are a foundation of pretty much every amigurumi out there, as I discuss in my guide to designing amigurumi, and every element can be broken down to a variation of one of the shapes below.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

What are the basic crochet shapes?

The basic shapes used in amigurumi design are spheres for heads and bodies, cylinders for limbs, hemispheres for ears, squares for clothing and accessories, lines for hair and accessories, circles, and ovals.

I’m just going to go over a few of these shapes below, but if you want to get the printable PDF for every single one of the shapes I talk about plus some bonus shapes, sign up below!

The photo above includes all the shapes that I use to design amigurumi! The top row has shapes made out of chains, the second row has flat pieces, and the third and fourth row have three dimensional pieces.

Here are examples of all of these amigurumi shapes in action.

Just these five shapes make up most of an amigurumi doll or stuffed animal. Spheres are the most common, and can be used as heads or elongated to make bodies.

Hemispheres are frequently used for limbs or ears, and ovals are used to add spots or white bellies.

Once you’ve mastered each of the shapes that I go over below, you’ll be able to modify them to make them bigger or smaller, longer or shorter of thinner or wider, to make any amigurumi you want!

Abbreviations

• BLO: back loop only
• ch: chain
• CC: contrast color
• dec: decrease
• inc: increase (work two single crochets in one stitch)
• MR: magic ring
• sc: single crochet
• x sc: work x number of single crochets
• st(s): stitch(es)
• (x sts): total number of stitches for the round
• (…) x: work all steps within parentheses x number of times

How to crochet lines, spirals, and corkscrews

Lines, spirals, and corkscrews are all crochet pieces based around chain stitches. These are incredibly useful for many amigurumi for tails, clothing details, legs, or anything else!

Line pattern

• Row 1: chain 15 (15)

This line pattern is the simplest of the four. It’s just made of a series of chains, which you can make as long as you want.

I use this piece for a simple and straight tail, or for handbag straps. It also works like a charm for belt or suspender detailing on dolls!

Loose spiral

• Row 1: chain 15 (15 sts)
• Row 2: beginning from second chain from hook, sc across (15 sts)
  • For help on “second chain from hook,” check out my blog post!
• Finish off.

This gentle spiral shape is created by working single crochet stitches into every chain stitch. Depending on your tension, you can achieve a gentler or more severe spiral pattern.

This spiral shape is very relevant to crochet hair, which is usually naturally curly because this technique is used. That means that to achieve straight hair, you’ll need to use a very loose tension as well as steam block the strands to straighten it out.

Don’t forget to grab the PDF patterns for all of these shapes, plus some bonus ones in my complete guide!

Spiral

• Row 1: chain 15 (15 sts)
• Row 2: beginning from second chain from hook, inc x15 (30 sts)
  • For help on “second chain from hook,” check out my blog post!
• Finish off.

This shape has a more pronounced spiral and is a little tighter naturally. This makes it an ideal candidate to be used anything that needs bouncy curls or spirals that don’t come undone easily.

Corkscrew

• Row 1: chain 15 (15 sts)
• Row 2: beginning from second chain from hook, inc x15, chain and turn (30 sts)
  • For help on “second chain from hook,” check out my blog post!
• Row 3: inc x30 (60 sts)
• Finish off.

This corkscrew is the same tightness as the spiral, but the “threads” are wider because of the additional row of increases.

This shape is reminiscent of pasta and can be used when a larger, stronger spiral shape is called for.

How to crochet a circle

Circles are one of the most basic shapes that are used in amigurumi, because they form the bases of spheres, bodies, legs, arms, and all kinds of 3D pieces.

The most important characteristic of a crochet circle, is how many stitches you increase by each round. This is also called the multiple, because it defines how many times you work an increase each round.

If you look at the photo above, you can see that the higher the multiple, the flatter (and larger) the piece is. Also, the larger the multiple, the bigger the hole is going to be in the center.

For my entire breakdown on each of the five variants I’ve demonstrated above, read my blog post on how to crochet the perfect circle here.

Below, I’ve just included my favorite of the five.

Multiples of 6: Round

• Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
• Round 2: inc x6 (12 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x6 (18 sts)
• Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x6 (24 sts)
• Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x6 (30 sts)
• Finish off.

This circle, with a multiple of 6, is almost perfectly round and is the ideal circle to use to create spheres, rounded limbs, or anything that needs to have a pleasant curve and not pointed.

In addition to the shape being ideal for spherical amigurumi pieces, it is also extremely easy to use it to shape amigurumi (change the rate at which it increases or decreases).

I mentioned before that the circle with a 5 multiple is difficult to work with. By contrast, this circle, which increases by 6 stitches per round, is exceptionally easy to work with because 6 is an easily divisible number.

This means that if I wanted to increase slightly faster, I could change the multiple to 8, or I could increase more slowly and change the multiple to 4 or even 2.

These are all ways to be able to affect the curve of the sphere/circle, and techniques that I use all the time to generate an ideal shape.

Because of its ease of use, a circle with a 6 multiple is almost the standard for amigurumi pieces, except for giant ones with blanket yarn (more on that later).

Additionally, although circles with a 6 multiple are really useful for making spheres and are naturally round, they can also be flattened to form a pseudo flat circle in a pinch because yarn is fairly flexible.

For this reason, I don’t often use circles with different multiples, even if I need the bottom of something to be flat.

How to crochet a square

• Begin: chain 5
• Row 1: Beginning from second chain from the hook, sc 4 across (4 sts)
• Row 2-5 (4 rows): sc across (4 sts)
• Work a single crochet border around the left, bottom, and right sides of the square, with three scs in each corner.

Squares aren’t used as often in amigurumi, but they can be useful to imitate some man-made shapes.

You can change the width this square simply by chaining more in the first row, and change the height by adding more rows.

I used a rectangle to make the sashimi tops in my sushi set pattern!

How to crochet an oval

• Begin: chain 7 (7 sts)
• Round 1: beginning from the second chain from the hook, sc around the foundation chain (12 sts)
  • For help on this step, see my blog post on crocheting around a foundation chain!
• Round 2: inc x12 (24 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x12 (36 sts)
• Finish off.

I love using ovals in my amigurumi designs because they’re so versatile. As appliqués, ovals come in handy for white bellies of animals, spots, or other embellishments.

However, my favorite way to use ovals is as an alternative method of creating spherical shapes. By starting with an oval, the resulting shape is an egg-shaped ovoid that opens up a huge amount of possibilities with amigurumi shaping.

Don’t forget to grab the complete PDF of all of these patterns, plus some bonus shapes, in my guide by signing up below!

How to crochet a perfect ball or sphere

• Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
• Round 2: inc x6 (12 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x6 (18 sts)
• Round 4-5 (2 rnds): sc around (18 sts)
• Stuff lightly.
• Round 6: (sc, dec) x6 (12 sts)
• Round 7: dec x6 (6 sts)
• Finish off in the round.

How to modify this sphere pattern

This ball pattern is made up of three sections: the increasing section (rnds 1-3), middle section (rnds 4-5), and decreasing section (rnds 6-7).

As a general rule, for a perfect sphere the number of rounds in the middle section should be one round more than the increasing section.

For example, if you’ve started the ball and increase until the ball is 36 stitches all around (6 rounds), then you should sc around for 7 rounds, and then decrease until you can finish it off.

You can tell when to stop increasing when the piece has reached the diameter and circumference that you want.

You can modify this sphere pattern by adding more rounds in the increasing section, adjusting the decreasing section accordingly, and adding more rounds to the middle section.

After you’re capable of making a perfect sphere, you can change the shape subtly by changing the rate at which the ball grows larger or smaller.

Rearranging the order in which the increasing/middle/decreasing rounds occur will shape the head so that it looks more top heavy or bottom heavy.

• To make the sphere larger on the bottom: rearrange the pattern so that a few of the middle section rounds occur in the increasing section, alternating with each increase round. Leave the decreasing section as is.
• To make the sphere larger on top: rearrange the pattern so that a few of the middle section rounds occur in the decreasing section, alternating with the decrease rounds. Leave the increasing section as is.

Adding or removing rounds will affect the size of your sphere.

• To make the sphere taller: Add more rounds into the middle section.
• To make the sphere shorter: Remove some rounds from the middle section.
• To make the sphere wider: Remove rounds from the middle section.
• To make the sphere narrower: Add rounds into the middle section.

How to use spheres in amigurumi

The sphere is the most common shape that I use for designing amigurumi. Balls are incredibly versatile, and are my go-to when making a head, and can also be used for all sorts of other body parts or accessories.

How to crochet a hemisphere or semicircle

• Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
• Round 2: inc x6 (12 sts)
• Round 3-4 (2 rnds): sc around (12 sts)
• Finish off in the round. For a semicircle, flatten.

This hemisphere pattern is just half of a sphere and has a huge array of possibilities for parts of amigurumi. If you flatten it to make a semicircle, it is a lot cleaner than creating a 2D semicircle and has a lot more structural integrity.

How to modify this hemisphere/semicircle pattern

To make this hemisphere larger or smaller, just add more increase rounds, and then sc around until you’ve reached the desired height or length.

You can also modify the shape of the flattened semicircle to make it wider or narrower.

• To make it wider: Work more increase rounds.
• To make it narrower: Work fewer increase rounds.

Another common way to modify the hemisphere pattern is to first make a hemisphere, and then sc around many times to create a rounded point of an arm, leg, or other piece.

Don’t forget, you can get all the patterns in this blog post in a convenient, printable PDF right here, plus some bonus shapes that only come in the PDF!

Elongated hemisphere

• Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
• Round 2: (2 sc, inc) x2 (8 sts)
• Round 3-9 (7 rnds): sc around (8 sts)
• Finish off. Do not stuff for a flat limb, or stuff lightly.

Elongated hemispheres are hemispheres that continue to lengthen after the hemisphere is complete. In the pattern above, rounds 1 and 2 dictate how large the piece is, and rounds 3-9 dictate how long the limb is overall.

To make this limb wider or narrower, add more or fewer rounds to the section at rounds 1-2. To make it longer, add more “sc around” rounds to the end of the pattern.

How to use hemispheres and semicircles in amigurumi

How to crochet a hard turn

Hard turns are a technique used in amigurumi to create a corner. Most crochet pieces are naturally curved, so it can be difficult to create ninety degree angles.

In the cylinder above, I’ve used a hard turn technique to clearly define the top and bottom circles, as well as the middle section. If I didn’t use the hard turn, it would look a lot rounder on the top and bottom, and overall more bullet shaped instead of cylindrical.

To create a hard turn, simply work a back loop only round in the first round of the new section.

For example, in the cylinder above, I worked a back loop only round in the first round of the middle section.

In the cube below, I worked a back loop only round in the first “sc around” round.

The back loop only round sets off that round so that it is easier to be at an angle to the previous round.

You can see it in action in the two examples below!

How to crochet a cylinder

• Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
• Round 2: inc x6 (12 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x6 (18 sts)
• Round 4: BLO, sc around (18 sts)
• Round 5-11 (7 rnds): sc around (18 sts)
• Stuff.
• Round 12: BLO, (sc, dec) x6 (12 sts)
• Round 13: dec x6 (6 sts)
• Finish off.

This cylinder is created by crocheting a circle (rounds 1-4), crocheting “sc around” rounds to build up the cylinder, and then closing the cylinder off (rounds 12-13).

This cylinder uses a technique called a hard turn, which we discussed earlier.

How to modify this cylinder pattern

This cylinder can be made larger or smaller, taller or wider.

• To make the diameter larger: make the initial circle larger by adding more rounds after round 4, increasing by 6 each time. You will need to decrease more corresponding to how much larger you made your initial circle.
• To make the diameter smaller: make the initial circle smaller by moving on to the “sc around” section before round 4. You will need to decrease less later on.
• To make the cylinder taller: add more “sc around” rounds to the middle section, until the cylinder is as tall as you want it.
• To make the cylinder shorter: add fewer “sc around” rounds to the middle section.

How to use cylinders in amigurumi

Cylinders aren’t as common of a shape. Usually when I want to make a tube shape I’ll use the elongated hemisphere, but cylinders are occasionally useful when trying to imitate man-made objects.

These are some of the most basic shapes that I use in amigurumi, as well as instructions on how to modify them and how to use them in designs!

This is just a starting point for shapes, but once you get familiar with them then it will be much easier to make up new ones on the fly.

I hope this helps, and if you have more questions please leave a comment below or email me!

Don’t forget, you can get all the patterns in this blog post in a convenient, printable PDF right here, plus some bonus shapes that only come in the PDF!

Commonly Asked Questions

How to shape amigurumi

As a general rule, changing the rate of increasing or decreasing stitches is the most important factor in shaping amigurumi. Increasing at the same rate will result in an even slope, but increasing faster will make the shape fan out, and increasing more slowly will make the shape bottleneck.

How do you curve in amigurumi?

Curving in amigurumi is achieved by changing the rate of increasing or decreasing. If the work has been increasing by 6 stitches per round, changing the rate of increasing to 8 or 10 will result in a curve out. Changing the rate of increasing to 2 or 4 will result in a curve in.

Why is my amigurumi pointy?

Amigurumi piece form points when there are not enough stitches in the round to create a curve. If it is pointy, try manually pressing down on the point to eliminate it, or re-make the piece with two or four extra stitches in the initial round.

How can I make amigurumi more round?

Amigurumi pieces can be made more round by increasing by six each round. Increasing by seven or eight will result in flatter pieces, and increasing by less than six will result in pointier pieces.

The post Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

Circles are one of the most basic shapes that are used in amigurumi, because they form the bases of spheres, bodies, legs, arms, and all kinds of 3D pieces.

I’ve also made a much longer guide with almost every single basic shape I use in amigurumi design, including spheres, corkscrews, hemispheres, squares, and more!

The most important characteristic of a crochet circle, is how many stitches you increase by each round. This is also called the multiple, because it defines how many times you work an increase each round.

If you look at the photo above, you can see that the higher the multiple, the flatter (and larger) the piece is. Also, the larger the multiple, the bigger the hole is going to be in the center.

I’ve crocheted the same circle with 5 different multiples, and I’ll go over below how to make them and why you would want to use each of them.

You can grab a free printable for all of these patterns at the sign up below:

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

Multiples of 4: Conical

• Round 1: 4 sc in MR (4 sts)
• Round 2: inc x4 (8 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x4 (12 sts)
• Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x4 (16 sts)
• Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x4 (20 sts)
• Finish off.

This circle is extremely conical and small, because it starts with only 4 stitches in the round. This shape can be useful for making spikes or other geometric shapes.

Multiples of 5: Wide cone

• Round 1: 5 sc in MR (5 sts)
• Round 2: inc x5 (10 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x5 (15 sts)
• Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x5 (20 sts)
• Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x5 (25 sts)
• Finish off.

A circle made with multiples of five is a little bit wider and less cone shaped. This could be useful if you wanted to make some subtle spikes, or bumps.

However, I have a strong aversion to using multiples of 5 when I design amigurumi, because odd numbers tend to be much harder to divide.

For instance, if I wanted to change the rate at which I was increasing, my only options would be to increase by 10 stitches per round, which is double the rate (very sharp increase).

If you’re looking for other types of crochet shapes, check out my blog post and downloadable PDF cheat-sheet below!

I created an entire guide on how to crochet basic shapes and more in this blog post!

If you want a cheat sheet printable with all of the written patterns for these shapes, as well as instructions on how to modify them, sign up below!

Multiples of 6: Round

• Round 1: 6 sc in MR (6 sts)
• Round 2: inc x6 (12 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x6 (18 sts)
• Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x6 (24 sts)
• Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x6 (30 sts)
• Finish off.

This circle, with a multiple of 6, is almost perfectly round and is the ideal circle to use to create spheres, rounded limbs, or anything that needs to have a pleasant curve and not pointed.

In addition to the shape being ideal for spherical amigurumi pieces, it is also extremely easy to use it to shape amigurumi (change the rate at which it increases or decreases).

I mentioned before that the circle with a 5 multiple is difficult to work with. By contrast, this circle, which increases by 6 stitches per round, is exceptionally easy to work with because 6 is an easily divisible number.

This means that if I wanted to increase slightly faster, I could change the multiple to 8, or I could increase more slowly and change the multiple to 4 or even 2.

These are all ways to be able to affect the curve of the sphere/circle, and techniques that I use all the time to generate an ideal shape.

Because of its ease of use, a circle with a 6 multiple is almost the standard for amigurumi pieces, except for giant ones with blanket yarn (more on that later).

Additionally, although circles with a 6 multiple are really useful for making spheres and are naturally round, they can also be flattened to form a pseudo flat circle in a pinch because yarn is fairly flexible.

For this reason, I don’t often use circles with different multiples, even if I need the bottom of something to be flat.

Multiples of 7: Fairly flat

• Round 1: 7 sc in MR (7 sts)
• Round 2: inc x7 (14 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x7 (21 sts)
• Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x7 (28 sts)
• Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x7 (35 sts)
• Finish off.

This circle with a 7 multiple is much flatter than the one with a 6 multiple. It lies completely flat and can be used for an even, level surface.

I don’t like using circles with a 7 multiple because of the same reason as the 5 multiple — odd/prime numbers are hard to divide and manipulate.

However, this is probably the perfect flat circle, so if you’re just making something that needs circles, like appliqué, this would do the trick!

Multiples of 8: Completely flat

• Round 1: 8 sc in MR (8 sts)
• Round 2: inc x8 (16 sts)
• Round 3: (sc, inc) x8 (24 sts)
• Round 4: (2 sc, inc) x8 (32 sts)
• Round 5: (3 sc, inc) x8 (40 sts)
• Finish off.

This circle with an 8 multiple is also completely flat. It’s ever so slightly less perfect than the 7 multiple circle, and if you add many more rounds the 8 multiple circle can sometimes develop wrinkles.

However, it’s my preference to use this circle instead of the 7 circle when I need something perfectly flat, because pieces with total stitch counts in a multiple of 8 are much easier to work with.

I also use this circle as the “round circle” when I’m working with jumbo velvet or blanket yarn. This is because when working with jumbo velvet yarn, the 6 multiple circle actually is very pointy, and the 8 multiple one looks much more like the 6 multiple circle.

I discuss this difference in more detail in my blog post on resizing amigurumi, so check out that blog post for more information.

The post How to crochet flat circles and basic shapes (ami design!) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

I began this journey with a simple goal: make money from crocheting through any means possible.

At the very beginning, I told myself that I would try to make money from crocheting for one year. I knew that starting a business would be a lot of work up front and that I would be unlikely to see any results for a long time, but I decided that if after a year I still didn’t have anything to show for it, I would let myself move on.

This was really effective for me because it helped me not focus on the immediate results, especially in those early months that were the absolute hardest to get through. In the beginning, I had no idea how I would make any money, so focusing on building an audience and developing my design skills helped lay the groundwork without stressing too much about the monetization aspect.

It took me six months to see any money, but by the one year mark, I was averaging about $1,000/month. Not bad for a venture that I thought would be surefire failure!

When it was time for me to reevaluate, I was making enough money for me to feel confident about “renewing my contract” with myself and continuing to work on my business.

Everyone says that the first year of working on a business is the hardest, and in my experience that’s extremely true. It’s the time when you’re probably working the most, while also making no money and getting no recognition. Compared to now, almost two years later, I’ve built so many systems for myself that I work much less hard, and in exchange I not only make profit but also get kind messages from people who enjoy my work and support from fellow artists.

The first few months were so tough on me psychologically (when I was working near non-stop with nothing to show) that as each week crawled by and I got a tiny bit better at designing or I hit the smallest milestones, I would think to myself “thank god I never have to do the 3rd month of a new business again,” or “thank god I never have to learn how to do xxx again.” It’s the little things, right?

Now that you have some backstory, let’s jump in and I’m going to tell you about nine hard won lessons I learned from starting my crochet business, as well as a few tips along the way.

1. Focus on passive income instead of active income

When I first started trying to make money from crocheting, I took a look around on Instagram and Google to see how people were already doing it. The first thought that I had — and maybe you’ve had — is that I would sell finished amigurumi that I had made. There seemed to be a lot of people doing so on Etsy and occasionally people would also comment on my Instagram account asking if I sold my creations.

However, after doing a little bit more research into how much I might be able to make with selling finished products, I realized the answer was not much. In fact, it didn’t look as if I would ever be able to pay myself even minimum wage for the amount of time I spent making each amigurumi, and I knew for a fact that I found making the same pattern over and over again quite repetitive.

I even wrote up a detailed breakdown in this blog post of real life examples of people selling their wares on Etsy, and how they made sweatshop wages and didn’t even clear any profit.

The other thing that turned me off from trying to start a business based in selling physical products is that I didn’t like how my time was inextricably linked to money. To make any amount of money, I had to put in a fixed amount of time. This meant that assuming I didn’t keep raising my prices, I would always have a cap on how much I could make. Further, it meant that I would spend all my time crocheting amigurumi to sell, and if I didn’t work, I wouldn’t make any money. This is called active income because you have to be active (do work) to earn an income.

So what’s an aspiring crochet entrepreneur to do?

I looked around some more, and it seemed like there were a lot of people who were making substantial money (it seemed) from crochet blogging and selling crochet patterns.

I was already interested in design and had made a few of my own, but this was my cue to go all in on it.

Selling digital crochet patterns appealed to me because even though it would be a lot more work to design amigurumi patterns than just to make them, I could sell that pattern forever without putting in any more time. This is called passive income because you technically don’t have to do any more work to make money. Obviously, you have to do some amount of work, but the work you do is not really linked to the amount of money you make.

For example, my top pattern on Etsy has made a total of $601.32 as of writing. No one would ever pay me $600 for a finished product of mine, and the best part is that I can keep selling this pattern forever even though I designed it years ago and won’t have to do anything further to keep selling it.

By the way, if you want to grab my PDF template for writing patterns, head over to this post for the free download and my tips on writing a good pattern!

Of course, there are lots of patterns that don’t do as well (I have several patterns that have never sold a single time), but the potential for total revenue is a lot higher than if I was selling finished products.

Even if I choose not to design a pattern for a few weeks or months, I still make a regular income from Etsy from people buying patterns that I designed ages ago. How great is that?

If I made an amigurumi and sold it to a customer, that time I spent making it is gone forever except for the money I made that one time. See how passive income is so incredible?

After figuring out that making finished products was not the way to go, I started exploring passive income strategies as much as possible. I decided to become an amigurumi designer and spent much of the first year honing my design and pattern writing skills and churning out design after design.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

My takeaway

If you’re trying to make a crochet business as a long term side hustle that could potentially replace your full time income, look for passive income strategies. If you’re fine with having a limit on total income and just want to make a few extra bucks, go ahead and sell your crochet products. Keep in mind that it takes significantly longer to build a passive income business, so only go this route if you feel like you can commit at least a year.

2. Build a stable business by diversifying revenue streams

After I got my business up and running, I had a new fear (can’t catch a break, amiright?). Now that I was actually making money, I was terrified that one day I would wake up and it would disappear. It seemed like a miracle that I was making money at all, so I didn’t feel at all confident that I would be able to maintain it.

Here’s a secret: at the very beginning of my business, over 90% of my income was made through brand sponsorships, most of them through a single company.

When I first secured the brand partnership, it was incredibly validating of the progress I had made in amigurumi design as well as in the audience that I had painstakingly built on Instagram. I finally had proof that I could make real money designing amigurumi and it lit a fire under me like nothing else.

However, I also realized that although it was great to be making money, it was incredibly unstable to only make money from one revenue stream.

What if that company ended up not wanting to work with me anymore or just ran out of budget?

I felt like I was teetering on one stilt, terrified that the one support underneath me would give out and I would be back to square one with zero, zilch, nada.

That’s when I realized how important it was to diversify my income. That’s just a fancy way of saying that you need to make money from a bunch of different sources at the same time, so that if you lose any one of them you’ll still be mostly fine. While it’s semi likely that you might lose one source of income, the more sources you have the more unlikely it will be that you will lose all of them. And that’s how you can build a stable business.

I didn’t want to be on one stilt, I wanted to be firmly seated on a chair that had four legs so that I wouldn’t fall.

I made it my goal to try to find as many more streams of income as possible so that I could make sure that my business would be sustainable long term, so that if that company ended up commissioning me for less work I would still be okay (spoiler alert, they did — but because I diversified my income, I barely felt the hit!).

To diversify my income, I worked on these areas:

• Growing my Etsy shop by adding more patterns and optimizing for Etsy Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Starting a blog and gaining lots of traffic through Google SEO, then monetize with ads
• Signing up with affiliate programs like Shareasale and make money through affiliate marketing
• Creating pattern bundles and selling them through email marketing
• Submitting designs with magazines and earning a commission

All of these pursuits have meant that now I feel much more confident and stable about my business because I have my fingers in a lot of different pies. When the company that I was working with put a cap on how often they worked with designers, I lost a lot of income in that area. However, it didn’t destroy my business because I was growing all of these other revenue streams that made up for it and gave me a sense of security.

In the future, I’m interested in growing all of the revenue streams that I talked about above but I also want to grow in these areas:

• Keep driving traffic to my blog and qualify for ad networks that pay more, like Mediavine
• Focus a lot more on my YouTube channel and monetize there using AdSense

My takeaway

The crochet design landscape is always changing. Algorithms on Instagram and Etsy are rarely there to benefit individual creators, and you should always make sure that you have diversified income so that if something completely tanks then you can still survive. You also have a much higher earning potential if you make money in many different areas than just one!

3. Most of your time is spent on the business part, not crocheting

Y’all, when I first started out designing amigurumi I had a fantasy that I would get to spend all day indulging in my creativity and making anything that came to mind.

I didn’t realize that the word crochet business is only half crochet — the other half is business. Yes, I do get to have some amazing moments when I had a pattern come out exactly the way that I dreamed. And one of my favorite parts of my business remains taking an idea from sketch to reality.

Here are some of my favorite designs!

However, the big caveat is that even when I’m working on the crochet part of my business I’m usually not actually crocheting. Pattern writing, communicating with testers, and publishing to the world takes a lot of time.

And that’s not even getting into the business part — I would estimate that I spend 70-80% of the time working on business things, and only the remaining 20-30% doing things that are even tangentially related to crocheting.

As a quick snapshot, here are the things I spend the most time on when running my business, ranked in order of how much time they consume:

1. Creating content for my blog
2. Learning about how to grow my business through taking courses and using free resources
3. Writing courses and ebooks
4. Posting on Instagram and managing Instagram
5. Email marketing
6. Writing, testing, and publishing patterns on Etsy and my personal shop
7. Designing patterns (crocheting)
8. Taking and editing photos and videos for IG, YouTube, and TikTok
9. Running sales
10. Affiliate marketing
11. Submitting to magazines

As you can see, the vast majority of items on this list do not include actual crocheting. And designing patterns only comes in the middle of this list, after so many other tasks that take up the lion’s share of my time.

Given how much work I have to do just to keep my business afloat, I use tons of tools and apps to help me schedule social media posts, do email marketing, and write my patterns. I wrote all of them down for you in the Designer Resources section of this page!

My takeaway

Starting a crochet business is a lot more business than crochet. This can be either a good thing or bad thing to you, but just know that you won’t be spending most of your time with a hook and yarn in hand.

4. Most people won’t understand your business, and that’s okay

If I had a dime for every time I told someone I had a crochet business and they said “do you sell crochet?” I would probably… still not be rich, but I bet I would at least have a jarful of dimes!

I can’t deny that my business is a little weird. Most of the things that I’m doing now to make money I never knew about before I started, and as a Gen Z person who grew up with the internet, that’s saying something!

Usually the most comprehensible part of my business is the fact that companies and magazines sometimes commission me for patterns, and also that I sell digital patterns online. However, to say that this is the extent of my business would be selling myself short given the amount of time and effort I put into learning about blogging, SEO, digital marketing, and everything else.

I’m not going to lie, even when someone is more understanding than usual and tries to look supportive and excited for me, it gives me a little pang of sadness that most people just have no idea what I’m doing or how big of a deal it is to me.

Without breaking out my income reports, it’s hard for me to say:

“I’m an artist and an entrepreneur, and not a starving artist either. I’m making enough money to pay my rent and I fully see myself growing this into a six figure business one day. And oh yeah, I make money mostly from ads, selling digital products including crochet patterns, and also through email marketing and affiliate marketing. Being an influencer and content creator is part of my business, but it’s not the entire business. Got it?”

Yeah… no wonder I’ve decided to go with an easier explanation. These days, I try not to lead with “crochet business” because I’ve learned that inevitably people jump to the conclusion that I’m selling my crochet works, when what I’m really doing is probably better characterized as blogging, being a digital marketing entrepreneur, or just making money online through basically all possible ways.

The other issue with leading with “crochet business” or “artist” is that most people also assume that I’m making a couple hundred dollars a month at best. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that amount of money, but I feel like that assumption leads people to take me less seriously than I do. I’ve spent almost two years at this point working for about 20 hours a week even during school because I see so much potential in this business to become a full time gig one day, which leads me to take it insanely seriously. It really grinds my gears that others might hear about it and assume that it’s just a little side hobby that I’m claiming is a business.

But anyway, aside from the rant, I’ve since realized that it’s okay if other people don’t understand my business, because I understand. And I don’t need someone else’s permission or acceptance to be freaking awesome! Other people’s opinions don’t mean anything about me, and it doesn’t change any of the facts about what I do.

My takeaway

Starting any kind of business is a little bit lonely because it’s scary to be doing something all on your own that might not work out. It’s even more lonely if it’s not something that most people understand, or don’t get why you would spend so much time working on without a tangible return (yet). The most important thing is to keep an ironclad faith in yourself and realize that other people don’t know what you know, which is that your business is viable and that everything, no matter how big, was built one step at a time.

5. It’s okay to take a break from social media

During my first year of working on my business, I was on Instagram all the time. I spent probably hours on it every day engaging with the crochet community, chatting with other designers, replying to comments, and posting on my stories.

At the time, this was great for me because I quickly fell into the amigurumi community and I loved being able to interact with so many designers and makers who loved the same thing I did. I also had a vague notion that building a following on Instagram would help my business in some way, so I spent tons of time on the app trying to drum up an audience.

About a year in, I had successfully built a small following, but I had begun to feel the negative effects of Instagram. I would feel anxious about my posts not doing well, feel vaguely jealous of other designers who seemed to effortlessly gain tons of followers overnight, feel inadequate because I thought my designs weren’t as good as other people’s, you know the deal.

It’s no secret that social media, and Instagram especially, is a comparison trap meant to incite negative feelings in you while also making you addicted to the app.

For most people, this would probably be the point where I would suggest you take a break and not post for a while, but in my mind, this wasn’t an option for me. After all, I had a business to run! If I didn’t post on my stories that day, would my followers even remember that I existed?

I struggled with this toxic relationship with a couple months before I realized that the mere act of opening the app made me unhappy afterwards, and decided to delete it. I had been scheduling posts on my laptop for a while so I didn’t strictly need the app on my phone anymore, but it meant that I couldn’t post stories anymore.

At this point I have to admit that even though Instagram seemed to have a mystical hold on me where I thought that if I just gained a few thousand more followers, opportunities and income would magically rain from the sky, very little of my income was actually directly related to Instagram.

I had gained my brand sponsorships from my Instagram presence, but that had been when I had around 1,000 followers and nothing new had happened since then. Occasionally brands would offer to send me free yarn in exchange for a post, but to me this didn’t equate to actual money and I didn’t really want to keep accumulating yarn.

When I deleted the app and stopped posting stories or even engaging too much with commenters, nothing really happened.

My posts took a small hit in terms of how many people commented, but that was because normal Instagram etiquette was to comment on your friends’ posts and then would comment on yours. Because I was spending almost no time on Instagram, I wouldn’t comment on anyone else’s posts and so they stopped commenting on mine as well.

However, I didn’t really lose too much engagement and in fact kept gaining followers. I had about the same number of posts become popular and ended up hitting 10k followers in early 2022 after not having the app for six months. To me, this was all the proof I needed: after a certain point, you don’t really need to be on Instagram. Especially if it’s not directly making you money.

I had assumed that Instagram was driving me some sort of traffic to my blog and Etsy shop, but when I last checked I had gained around 400 visits in the last month from Instagram, whereas I got over 24,000 visits from Google. Instagram was only driving me about 1% of my total traffic (30k visits). Oof.

And that’s when I realized, the three hours a day I used to spend on Instagram was a total waste.

Now, I know that some people manage to sustain their businesses through driving traffic from Instagram, but I also know that it takes substantial effort every day while driving traffic from Google for me is a lot easier and beneficial. Honestly, it seems like most people who do well on Instagram have managed to go viral in some way, and to me, “going viral” is not a business strategy.

My takeaway

I wouldn’t recommend not having an Instagram presence at all, because it is one of the biggest social media marketing platforms out there, but just know that if you get burned out on it, it’s okay to take a break. Just make sure you’ve diversified your traffic so that you don’t have to rely only on one platform!

6. Remember why you started and use your north star to guide your strategy

At some point in the last two years, I became extremely anxious about all the things I wasn’t doing. Instagram was pushing Reels and TikTok had just become extremely popular, I tried to submit to magazines all the time and I was trying to figure out Pinterest and… and.. and… it all became too much for me.

I’m sure everyone has had this experience of having too much on your plate and feeling like you have to do everything (perfectly!).

I had to stop and reevaluate what I should keep on pursuing and what I should stop. It’s pretty easy to stop doing something that isn’t working, but there were always lots of things that I was doing that seemed like they were working (see above on Instagram) or felt like they could work… if I just gave it more time. Not to mention, lots of things that I really felt like I should get going on (like TikTok and YouTube).

There’s always so much to do and it often feels like you’re failing just by not doing them (even if you’re doing everything else fairly well!). However, I had to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t keep expecting that I would be able to do everything that I wanted to do, and I needed a method to figure out what was most important.

Enter the north star strategy.

What’s a north star? Your north star is your why, your guiding principle, or the reason you started in the first place.

When trying to figure out what the most important thing is in a sea of things that all seem equally important, this is how you can figure out what you should prioritize.

This can be different for everyone, depending on your north star.

For some people, their north star might be making the most amount of profit possible. For them, maybe they should be chasing virality on TikTok and Instagram and trying to make the most popular amigurumi. For others, their north star might be trying to make a little side income to cover the cost of their materials. For them, starting a blog probably wouldn’t be worth it because it’s way too much effort and doesn’t fit with their vision.

For me, my north star means:

• sustainability
• financial independence
• creative fulfillment

I actually have these written down underneath my business to-do list so that I never lose sight of what’s most important to me.

The most important thing to me is sustainability. That means that I can keep working on my business for a long time without becoming burned out. Because this is part of my north star, it meant that I decided not to be on too many platforms at once.

In terms of the best possible business strategy to maximize profit, of course I would be on every single platform churning out content that would be the best for the algorithm every waking hour of my life. But guess what, that’s just not sustainable for me as a human being. Just being on Instagram made me feel burned out, let alone any other platforms.

I made the conscious choice to prioritize my ability to keep working on my business over my ability to grow as quickly as possible. Because of this, I prefer passive income strategies that help me not burn out, and the ones I use the most are ones that allow me to be the most time efficient like blogging and email marketing over social media marketing.

My second most important aspect of my north star is financial independence. I started my business with the long term goal of becoming an extremely profitable side hustle, with the hope of going full time with it eventually.

That means that I want to eventually become a six figure blog, which is no easy feat. In order to make this amount of money, I had to pursue passive income over active income, and also invest a significant amount of time and energy into working on this business. I also am constantly evaluating how to scale up my business (again while making sure I don’t burn out) so that I can get to the level I want. However, because sustainability is so important to me, I have accepted that it might take me a little longer to get here than I otherwise might.

Finally, I want my business to have creative fulfillment. This goal also somewhat clashes with the goal of financial independence, because to be honest, sometimes the designs I want to create are not really what will sell the best.

For example, after I started designing amigurumi I discovered that I really love creating dolls, especially of fictional and real life figures. However, these patterns have been some of the lowest performing for me, and my audience prefers teddy bears and animal designs. But if I only made the designs that I thought would sell the best, or chase whatever was hot at the moment (I’m looking at you, baby Yoda), then it would cause burn out in me.

It takes a lot of effort to conceive of a creative vision and then to bring it to life, and I’ve discovered that unless I have a genuine passion to make every little detail perfect then I end up doing a haphazard job and disappoint myself.

This issue recently came to pass when the company who commissions patterns from me was paying extra for giant amigurumi made from jumbo velvet yarn. These amigurumi have been tremendously popular recently, and although I don’t enjoy making them as much because they aren’t as detailed as my normal designs, I gave it a fair shot.

After a couple months and almost ten designs, I decided that the strain of laboring over designs that I just personally didn’t love wasn’t cutting it for me. I decided to forego the extra profit in favor of embracing my creative fulfillment to make designs that made my heart sing, and I believe that was the best decision I could have made.

My takeaway

If you are clear on your north star, then it will help you narrow down all the options and decisions you can make. It will also make sure that you always feel like you’re honoring yourself in your heart of hearts, and are not swayed by the actions of others who are following their own north stars.

7. Never stop learning

If you don’t like learning, starting a business isn’t for you. I’m serious — I’ve had to learn constantly since I started this journey of mine, from paid courses, free resources, friends, industry leaders, books, podcasts, blog posts, and more.

I’m truly obsessed with learning everything there is to know about starting an online business and the amount of resources I’ve invested my time and money in are a testament to that.

Especially since the online landscape changes so fast, I truly believe that if you don’t learn, then you don’t grow. (Or in many cases, you don’t keep up.)

Although learning might seem like a no-brainer, something that isn’t is my conviction that investing in yourself and your business is essential to growing.

I was very apprehensive to spend any real money, especially when I first started, because I hadn’t made any money yet and also because it felt like so much money for what was basically a pipe dream at that point.

Since that first course, I’ve spent almost $3,000 in various courses to help me level up my business, and without these I would never have a thriving blog or business.

I’m sure that there are some duds out there, and I don’t expect each new resource I purchase to be a silver bullet that magically makes my business into an overnight success, but these courses have given me a return far, far higher than the amount I paid.

When I think about starting a new course, I remember that I want to be the kind of person who invests in herself, and if the cost of that is a course that isn’t exactly what I wanted, so be it. I’m still committed to trying to stretch myself and see what other people have to offer. After all, if the course doesn’t work out, I’ve just lost some money, but if it does and I didn’t get it, I lost the potential for my wildest dreams to come true.

My takeaway

Take every chance to learn and don’t be afraid to invest in yourself!

8. Those who don’t respect you don’t deserve respect

Here’s one that’s a little more of a downer. Since I’ve started my blog and grown my audience I’ve encountered my fair share of nasty comments from people who have chosen to take it out on me.

These run the gamut from people telling me that I’m cheating them because the pattern bundle I listed was apparently a few dollars more than what 80% off strictly comes out to (I’m not lying about this one) to people who DM me on Instagram and say that I’m lying because my pattern wasn’t free. (It was, they just didn’t look on Google.)

I can’t make this stuff up, y’all. Here’s one of the emails I mentioned:

When I just started these comments were a rude awakening and quite a shock to absorb. Most people rarely have people accusing them of being liars and cheaters in their day to day life and to receive emails and DMs to this tune is extremely jarring.

However, I’ve realized that it’s part of the terrain that comes with being someone who puts herself out there online. I’ve learned that many view any public people or brands as inherently faceless and thus feel licensed to spew all manner of vitriol in their direction.

So if you’re in this position and feel really alarmed about the comments you’re getting, let me be the first to let you know that people are just mean on the internet. End of story. It doesn’t mean anything about you.

My takeaway

My general rule in this area is that if someone isn’t being respectful of you, then they don’t deserve your respect. And yes, there is definitely a way to tell someone that they’ve made an error while being respectful — I hope I don’t have to tell you that.

9. Starting this business is incredibly empowering and it is so, so worth it

To conclude this extremely long post, I wanted to say that starting this business has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. Possibly the best.

I don’t know how it ends, but so far the experience of building something all on my own and have it make real money to help me pay off my loans and put money into savings has given a sense of confidence and purpose that I’ve never experienced before.

I feel like I have a real ability to control my future, my income, and my life, and I have a huge sense of confidence in my follow through and myself in general. I trust myself to get things done and to have my own back because I have so much evidence for what I’m capable of.

I love developing my artistic ability and to design patterns that I truly adore, and I love seeing other makers recreate my designs and helping them in their crochet journey.

All the long hours and anxiety has been completely worth it and I hope to still be doing this for the next many years.

My takeaway

If you’re thinking about it, just go for it. You’ll be challenged beyond anything you can imagine but you’ll also learn to trust yourself and build a strength that no one else can question.

More like this:

• 20 Cutest FREE Crochet Baby Toy Patterns (for beginners!)
• 14 Quick and Easy Crochet Keychains for Bags (Stashbuster!)
• 12 Cutest Free Crochet Gnome Patterns (beginner friendly!)
• 9 Cutest Totoro Crochet Patterns (from Studio Ghibli!)
• 9 Fun Crochet Jellyfish Patterns!

The post How I made $1,000 a month from my crochet business (+ my tips!) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

One of my favorite things about amigurumi is that you can make them any size you want, without worrying about gauge or finding the exact right yarn to match the pattern. Generally, most amigurumi patterns are adaptable to other weights of yarn, so going up or down a few sizes will not result in major differences in the final product. 

However, in this post I’ll go into detail about the crucial things you need to know about trying to upsize or downsize your amigurumi, as well as show you some examples and let you know about potential pitfalls.

How to make amigurumi bigger

The best way to enlarge amigurumi is to use a heavier weight of yarn or to hold two strands of yarn together. This method works until category 6 yarn, but not with jumbo or blanket yarns. To substitute jumbo yarn, change the pattern so that it increases in multiples of eight instead of six.

Usually, amigurumi patterns will list the exact yarn and weight that the designer used to achieve the finished product shown in the photos. Most amigurumi patterns these days use either worsted weight or sport weight yarn because they allow for some finer details without being too time consuming to make.

The great thing about amigurumi is that since it’s not like a garment where you have to match a specific gauge for a good fit, you can actually substitute whatever yarn is listed with with other brands and weights of yarn without too much of an issue.

As long as the yarns you use are internally consistent, meaning if you use the same weight for all colors, then there usually isn’t a huge problem with substituting heavier weights of yarn for the usual worsted or sport weight. If you size up your yarn, don’t forget to also size up your hook! I’ll discuss this further below, so skip down if you want my full chart on recommended hook sizes for all yarn weights.

My original pumpkin bear pattern (on the right) is designed in worsted weight yarn, but the maker Potigurumi went also made the pattern in super bulky velvet yarn which resulted in a bear twice the size!

An easy way to get a heavier weight of yarn without going out and buying a ton of yarn in a bigger weight than you normally use is to hold two strands of yarn together at the same time. This method, also known as “holding two strands double,” usually gets you an amigurumi about 1.5 times larger than the original size, according to Planet June.

This is probably the easiest method to use when trying to size up an amigurumi because it doesn’t require any extra materials and guarantees that the original and sized up amigurumi will match, if you’re trying to make a set.

Chart of all yarn weights when held double

Here’s a super handy chart to show you what weight you’ll end up with when you hold two strands double. This can help you figure out the hook size you should use when working with two strands at the same time. Also, it can help you figure out how to substitute certain colors if you don’t have them in the original size.

When you size up the yarn you use, you should also size up the hook. As usual, for amigurumi you should use a hook size about 1.0mm smaller than the recommended hook size when making amigurumi. I discuss this further in my blog post about hook sizes here, or check out the chart below!

Yarn weight and hook size chart for amigurumi

Since making amigurumi calls for an extremely tight tension with no gaps between each stitch, often the recommended hook size listed on the yarn label for a given weight is way too large.

As a general rule, I always size down at least 1.0mm. For heavier weights like super bulky and jumbo, the hook size that I use is far below the recommended size. As you can see, there isn’t a huge range in the hook sizes that I recommend using because there just isn’t a situation where you would need a hook higher than 5.0mm.

The jumbo patterns on my website are all made using a 5.0mm hook, and that’s what I would recommend to minimize gappiness and ensure that your amigurumi has a smooth and neat surface.

If you’re curious about how to crochet other kinds of crochet shapes, check out my blog post and downloadable PDF cheat-sheet below!

I created an entire guide on how to crochet basic shapes and more in this blog post!

If you want a cheat sheet printable with all of the written patterns for these shapes, as well as instructions on how to modify them, sign up below!

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

How to substitute blanket yarn in an amigurumi pattern

As a general rule, it’s not possible to substitute blanket yarn in a regular sized amigurumi pattern. If you want to make an amigurumi pattern with jumbo blanket or velvet yarn, make the first round with 8 stitches and then always increase in multiples of eight throughout the pattern.

Although the method of sizing up yarn weight or holding yarn double is effective, the one exception is usually if you’re trying to use jumbo weight blanket yarn in an average amigurumi pattern. This is especially notable because recently jumbo velvet amigurumi have been really popular (I’ve even designed a bunch of these patterns) and I’ve gotten questions on whether you can use any amigurumi pattern and substitute jumbo velvet yarn.

To see all my amigurumi patterns specifically designed for blanket yarn, check out this post here!

In my experience as an amigurumi designer, jumbo velvet yarn behaves a little differently from smaller weights of yarn, and so I don’t usually recommend trying a direct substitution in a pattern that isn’t specifically written for jumbo weights of yarn.

More blog posts like this:

• Ultimate List of Free Chunky Blanket Yarn Amigurumi Patterns
• Jumbo Strawberry Free Velvet Crochet Pattern
• My Foolproof Guide to Resizing Amigurumi (no math required!)
• My Foolproof Guide to Crocheting Amigurumi for Beginners

If you do so, what usually happens is that the beginning and ends of the piece will have a more defined pucker than usual, which can be hard to get rid of.

To account for this, I use a simple trick when designing for jumbo amigurumi. You can see it in action in my two penguin designs below, one about 4 inches tall and the other about 12 inches tall!

If you’ve made a lot of amigurumi, you’ve probably noticed that many amigurumi patterns look like the following, with a multiple of six in each round:

If the pattern is written like this, then it means that each round will increase 6 stitches. You can also see this in the total stitch count, since it goes up by 6 every round.

For jumbo velvet patterns, the key is to change the multiple to eight. The only thing you need to change is to start out with 8 stitches in a magic ring instead of 6, and then replacing the “x6” instruction with “x8” whenever it says so.

I go over this concept in my blog post on how to crochet the perfect flat and rounded circles which you can read here!

You can grab a free printable for my circle guide at the sign up below:

This method will work with amigurumi patterns are are generally simple and ball shaped. If they are more complicated with a lot of shaping, it’s less likely that this quick fix will work.

However, it will be very effective for the vast majority of cases!

Here are the corresponding instructions from my jumbo penguin pattern:

As you can see, all I did was to change the multiple from 6 to 8. In fact, for this resize I didn’t change anything at all except for the multiple of increases.

Of course, the total stitch count also changes, but if you feel confident with your ability to increase the right amount each time, this shouldn’t be a major problem.

And there you have it, the key to making jumbo amigurumi from regular amigurumi patterns!

I also used this strategy when adapting my chicken pattern into a jumbo turkey:

How to make giant amigurumi

The best way to make giant amigurumi is to size up the yarn. If you’re using blanket yarn, then you should seek out patterns specifically designed for jumbo amigurumi. Otherwise, change the increase multiple from 6 to 8 to adapt a regular amigurumi pattern to jumbo yarn.

To make truly giant amigurumi, I strongly recommend using jumbo velvet yarn like Sweet Snuggles (you can see all my favorite yarn recommendations here) and finding patterns that are designed for jumbo blanket yarn. These usually include fewer details that don’t translate as well to larger yarn, and include the multiples of 8 that I talked about above.

I rounded up all my favorite blanket yarn amigurumi on the internet at this link here!

How to make amigurumi smaller

The best way to make amigurumi smaller is to size down the yarn weight and hook. This works with almost all amigurumi patterns, except those specifically designed for blanket yarn. For tiny amigurumi, use crochet thread and a steel hook.

Now that we’ve talked all about how to make amigurumi bigger, let’s discuss what to do if you want to go small.

The general method for making amigurumi smaller is the same as it is for making them larger — changing the yarn and hook size to a smaller one.

For a small amigurumi, you can use fingering weight or sport weight yarn and the corresponding hook (see hook size chart above).

In fact, I generally use sport weight yarn for my amigurumi patterns because I prefer them to be more detailed while still being small, so when I make patterns that are designed for worsted weight yarn, they all come out a bit smaller (which I love!).

The one time that this strategy won’t work is for patterns that are specifically designed for jumbo amigurumi.

As discussed above, jumbo amigurumi are designed differently to accommodate the large yarn weight, which also means that if you try to make them with normal sized yarn, they won’t come out right.

What usually happens is that there will be a noticeable ripple, because there are too many increases for the smaller weight of yarn.

However, as long as you’re working with a regular amigurumi pattern and you go a few weights smaller, it will be fine!

How to make mini amigurumi

The best way to make mini amigurumi is to use crochet thread and a steel hook. With these materials, you can dramatically size down almost any amigurumi pattern to a miniscule dimension. Practice using fingering weight yarn and a small yarn hook first for the best chance of success.

To make truly mini amigurumi (I’m talking one inch tall or less), we’re going to dive into the realm of thread crochet.

Thread crochet is just like regular crochet, except you need special materials that are much smaller than ordinary yarn and hooks.

Instead of yarn, you’ll need to use crochet thread which comes in a variety of sizes:

• Size 3 and 5 crochet thread is about as thick as a lightweight yarn, with size 3 being slightly thicker than size 5. If you have trouble learning thread crochet, start with these large sizes of thread.
• Size 10 crochet thread is slightly thinner than most yarn, slightly thicker than size 3 or 5 threads. Beginners to thread crochet often find that this is a good size to start with.
• Size 20 and 30 crochet thread are common options. Many of the thread crochet patterns that you will find are going to call for one of these two sizes of thread.

Since crochet thread is so thin, regular hooks won’t work. That’s where steel crochet hooks come in.

• Size 10 thread works well with a crochet hook sized 7 or 8
• Size 20 thread works well with a crochet hook sized 9 or 10
• Size 30 thread works well with a crochet hook sized 10, 11 or 12

For a deep dive into the basics of thread crochet, check out this great article by The Spruce Crafts here!

Here’s a quick comparison of a few of my patterns sized down to crochet thread. All of the miniature creations were made by my amazing friend Melody at @melodiybali! For all of them, she used size 20 crochet thread and a size 10 hook (0.75mm).

More like this:

• 20 Cutest FREE Crochet Baby Toy Patterns (for beginners!)
• 14 Quick and Easy Crochet Keychains for Bags (Stashbuster!)
• 12 Cutest Free Crochet Gnome Patterns (beginner friendly!)
• 9 Cutest Totoro Crochet Patterns (from Studio Ghibli!)
• 9 Fun Crochet Jellyfish Patterns!

The post My Guide to Resizing Amigurumi in 2024 (no math!) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

As a general rule, websites such as Ravelry and Etsy are the easiest and most profitable method for selling crochet patterns. To create a crochet pattern, write a tutorial of an original design on Google Docs or Canva, and download the PDF. List the PDF on Ravelry and Etsy for potential buyers!

That’s right, selling online is the way to go. Let’s go over the details of how to create your first crochet pattern and other essential elements!

How does selling crochet patterns work?

Crochet patterns are essentially a written and visual tutorial of how to create a given crochet project. In this new digital age, it has become a common practice to write up crochet patterns of original designs and self publish them to the internet, in the process making passive income.

To be able to sell a crochet pattern, you will need to come up with an original crochet design. For an in depth guide to designing amigurumi, click here to read the full blog post I wrote.

Creating a crochet design and writing a pattern can involve a lot of trial and error, which I’ll discuss later. However, it’s important to know that you do not need any qualifications to write and design a crochet pattern, just an interest in design and a dedication to professionalism and high standards.

If you’re curious about how to crochet the basic building blocks of amigurumi — all the basic shapes, check out my blog post and downloadable PDF cheat-sheet below!

I created an entire guide on how to crochet basic shapes and more in this blog post!

If you want a cheat sheet printable with all of the written patterns for these shapes, as well as instructions on how to modify them, sign up below!

After writing down a pattern of an original design, convert the written instructions into a PDF, which is easy to download, send, and manipulate online.

Essentially, you’ve just created a digital product that you can sell and distribute online that has value, as long as the design you’ve created is desirable and you’ve written it down in a way that is easily understood and replicated by others.

Now that you’ve finished creating your digital product, the next step is to find an audience that’s willing to purchase it from you, and to set up a way for them to access it and for you to get paid.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

Where can I sell crochet patterns?

Ravelry and Etsy are the best digital marketplaces to sell PDF crochet patterns. These platforms charge fees for listing digital patterns, but also have a high amount of traffic. Selling crochet patterns on a personal blog lowers fees, but requires a lot more time spent marketing.

The fastest way to make your first sale is to list your pattern on a digital marketplace that includes an audience built in that is interested in your product and might be able to find it.

For crochet patterns, this usually means Ravelry and Etsy. Everyone browsing Ravelry is interested in crochet (and knit) patterns, and is usually willing to pay for them. Etsy is a handmade digital marketplace with a huge pool of potential buyers, of which many of them are crafters.

There are a few other options for places to list your pattern. You can try other digital marketplaces such as Craftsy, Lovecrafts, Ribblr, or any others that you may find.

However, the main questions you should consider when deciding whether a given platform is worth your time are whether there is high enough volume of traffic on that website, and how competitive it is.

Ravelry and Etsy are pretty competitive, but they also have a huge amount of traffic that makes it more likely that the perfect customer will be able to find your pattern.

Smaller platforms like Craftsy and Lovecrafts may have lower competition, but they also do not have as many users who regularly buy from those websites.

You should try several platforms and see whichever ones work the best for you, but I have found the most success with Etsy and Ravelry.

All of these online marketplaces make the transaction process relatively easy and are experienced with handling digital download products like crochet patterns, so they are a safe bet and a good place to start for beginners.

If you prefer to avoid fees and perhaps want to build your own brand, selling patterns on a personal storefront powered by Shopify or BigCartel is a good strategy.

However, in this eventuality, you will be solely responsible for driving traffic to your website and building an audience. You will also have to set up your own transaction process and may have to deal with fees if you use PayPal or Stripe, common methods of online payment.

Regardless of whether you list your patterns on your website or on Etsy or Ravelry, marketing your patterns will increase the likelihood of someone purchasing your pattern. Marketing means engaging in any type of activity that gets your product in front of more people, especially people who may be interested in your product.

For crochet patterns, common methods of marketing include sharing your pattern on Pinterest, Facebook groups, and Instagram.

You can also pay for ads on Facebook or Pinterest (or even Etsy). All of these activities involve sharing your crochet patterns on different social media platforms, as well as building an audience that will eventually recognize and value your brand.

How do I write a crochet pattern PDF?

The best way to write a crochet pattern PDF is to record essential information, step by step instructions, and process photos on a software like Google Docs or Canva. It’s vital to include details like gauge, sizing, and abbreviations, as well as any charts or schematics.

The goal of a crochet pattern is to be universal, easily accessible, and helpful so that most people will be able to follow your instructions and create the same project that you designed.

With that in mind, every crochet pattern must include a few essential pieces of information, as well as adhere to some general guidelines.

You can create a PDF crochet pattern in any word processor that you can attach images to and download a PDF from. I highly recommend a free graphic design website, Canva, but you can also get started just using Google Docs, Word, Pages, or anywhere else you regularly type documents in.

Download my free crochet pattern template to get started!

For a free template of a PDF pattern I made in Google Docs, click here! Simply make a copy and save to your own Drive.

Note: This template is not guaranteed to be universal for all needs and is meant to be a starting point, not a perfect final pattern. Please adapt, edit, and polish for your own needs. This template was adapted from an amigurumi pattern and so may be missing some elements commonly found in garment patterns.

What do I need to include in my crochet pattern?

The essential items that you need to include in your crochet pattern PDF are as follows:

1. Name of pattern
2. Photos of finished product
3. List of abbreviations that you will use throughout
   1. There is not a standard list of abbreviations, though it generally differs in the US and UK. However, as long as you stay consistent between your abbreviations list and your pattern, then you can use any notation method you wish.
   2. The Craft Yarn Council provides a list of standard abbreviations for US, UK, and Canada terminology (click here). Feel free to use this list if you do not have any other preferences.
4. List of materials
5. Final dimensions, and information about sizing if your pattern is graded for different sizes or dimensions
6. Yardage in various sizes if your design is graded
7. Color work charts if applicable
8. Any helpful charts or schematics
   1. Stitch Fiddle is my go-to for creating crochet charts!
9. Technical notes for general assistance, as well as links to tutorials for stitches or techniques that a beginner might not already be familiar with
10. The pattern for your project, written in consistent and concise notation according to your abbreviations, with ample process photos throughout for clarity in difficult steps

Beyond these elements that are an absolute minimum, you may want to include some optional components:

• A brief introduction to the pattern and some background on you as a designer
• A note stating that your pattern should not be copied, and that finished objects made from the pattern can be sold in small quantities with credit to you (or not, depending on your wishes)
• A method for crocheters to contact you if they require pattern support
• A way for crocheters to share their finished projects with you on social media, either through a hashtag, tagging you on Instagram, or an email
• Links to your social media accounts so that crocheters can find you online
• Skill level of pattern
• Your logo and brand name

Ultimately, a written pattern (especially one that is paid) is meant to be a straightforward, easily accessible, and generally standardized. Although there are no strict regulations for what you should or should not include, it’s generally best practice to make sure that your crochet pattern does not deviate substantially from what may already be conventionally, for the sake of crocheters who may already be used to the general format of crochet patterns.

The best way to learn what to include in crochet patterns, aside from following the list above, is to purchase and use a wide variety of crochet patterns yourself. That way, you can learn what elements you find to be essential, as well as certain elements that you prefer to be there and those that you find unnecessary. This way, you can produce a pattern that you feel is best.

One last note: most crochet patterns should be beginner friendly, though they do not necessarily have to be geared to absolute beginners. This mainly means including some notes or tips in your patterns for beginners attempting your pattern, ideally tutorials for uncommon stitches or stitch patterns, and any other techniques that may not be already known.

Most people who follow crochet patterns are likely confident beginners, and it’s always better to underestimate your reader’s ability than to overestimate.

How much should I charge for a crochet pattern?

Digital crochet patterns should be priced between $3-7 each. Pricing should be based on the complexity of the pattern and amount of time spent writing the pattern, as well as the experience and brand recognition of the designer.

The general range of prices for digital crochet patterns ranges from $1 at times up to $7-8 for well known designers. For new designers, begin pricing your crochet patterns at a baseline of around $3-5, so that you have some leeway for sales, but also room to grow.

After you’ve decided your baseline price, increase your price based on complexity of the pattern. This could mean that you have a range of prices for a variety of projects, from accessory to graded sweater.

You should also increase your baseline depending on how well known your brand has become. Ultimately, the bigger your brand grows, the more you can charge, because your audience base is larger. You should also establish yourself as a high end designer so that your audience is more willing to pay higher end prices for your patterns.

In the beginning of your pattern designing journey, you likely will not make that much money per pattern, but if you consistently build your brand on social media and online over time, each pattern will eventually earn — and the more you grow, the more the patterns will sell.

Selling digital patterns of designs is a more efficient way of earning money than selling finished objects because it’s a form of passive income, meaning that you do not need to actively work to make money for each pattern sold. Once you design a pattern, it can continue to earn money for you theoretically forever, as long as you keep growing your brand and continue reaching new people.

I hope this article helped you get started in your pattern writing and selling journey! If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below or email me at littleworldofwhimsy@gmail.com. I’d love to help out!

The post How to Sell Crochet Patterns in 2024 (With a PDF Template) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

Typically, it’s possible to make a living crocheting through digital marketing and content creation as a crochet designer. Taking commissions for finished objects and participating in craft fairs likely will yield some revenue, but not full time work from home income.

You may be wondering, what is this digital marketing and content creation jargon I’m talking about? Don’t worry — I’m going to break down all the ways to earn income through crocheting and discuss the level of income you might be able to expect for each.

By the way, if you want to check out the exact resources I’ve used to build this business, check out my Recommended Supplies page and scroll to the bottom!

How can I earn a full time income crocheting?

As you can see, if we take a full time income to constitute $40,000, then although all of the job titles in the chart can make some level of income, becoming a designer and content creator is the only viable way to make a full time income. Let me break down each of these categories for you and review how I arrived at those numbers, as well as my personal experience with each one. I also want to note quickly that the job title with the highest possible revenue is also the one that takes the longest to come to fruition, with months of work before you may see any money. The one with the lowest possible revenue, selling finished products, is the easiest to earn money from in a quick time frame, but also does not have a huge earning potential long term.

The second thing that you might notice is that as you progress from the bottom of the chart to the top, the type of income goes from active to passive, and the activities become much more scalable. Active income means that you are trading time for money; whenever you earn money, you put in a certain amount of time (e.g. selling finished products, teaching workshops). Passive income means that you might put in a certain amount of time once, but you can continue making money off of it forever (e.g. selling crochet patterns, ad revenue). Generally, to run a successful and lucrative business, as much time should be spent on increasing passive income as possible. That’s because when working on passive income streams, whenever you put time in, it will continue to pay off infinitely, so over time your annual income will continue increasing ad infinitum even if you work the same amount of time each year. When you have active income streams, this effect does not happen, and the total amount you can make is capped by the amount of time you put in.

Of course, some active income streams are better than others, such as brand sponsorships that may pay $300+ for several hours of work. However, the majority of your time should still be spent on passive income streams so that your yearly revenue will automatically increase on its own.

Since selling finished products is likely the method of earning money that you may be most familiar with, I’ll cover it first.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

How can I sell finished products?

The process of selling finished products is fairly simple. The question of how to price products to actually earn a profit is more complicated, which I will address below. However, I will describe the ideal circumstance that I alluded to in the chart above.

In order to sell finished products, a seller must crochet popular crochet items such as shawls, toys, and baby items, and then sell them for a profit to an audience either online or in person. This can include craft markets, family and friends, social media platforms, and a physical storefront.

The most difficult parts of this process are pricing at a profit and finding the right audience. Pricing is difficult because the vast majority of crafters who sell goods do not price in a way that yields a profit, as I will address below. Finding the right audience is difficult because selling anything at all involves some level of marketing. Simply put, the more marketing you do, the wider the audience you reach, and the higher you can price your products. Done well, marketing can take up as much as time as crocheting itself.

At this stage, you might also try to teach workshops at a community center or privately, which can be much more lucrative than selling finished products. However, this activity still constitutes active income, meaning you need to put in time each time you earn money.

I arrived at the figure in the chart by assuming a seller was earning around minimum wage for time spent crocheting. This constitutes a high estimate because the vast majority of crocheters who sell finished products do not earn a minimum wage of $10/hour.

Continue reading for a more detailed explanation, or skip to the next section to learn about how to earn closer to a full time income crocheting.

How should I price finished products to earn a profit?

When you first think of making money from crocheting the first strategy that may come to mind is selling finished objects or taking commissions either through word of mouth or on Etsy or at craft markets, but this is a not a good option if you want to earn a full time income. If you just want to recoup the cost of your materials and support your yarn buying habit, then this is perfectly fine, but not as a long term work from home option given the devaluation of homemade goods.

The central problem with trying to earn money crocheting finished objects is that crocheting is extremely time consuming, and handmade goods are very devalued in the modern age of cheap, imported consumer goods. Essentially, it is extremely difficult to be able to turn a profit.

The reason is simple: even the smallest coaster will take up to half an hour to whip up, and larger items such as shawls, sweaters, and toys easily take from 10-30 hours to make.

Common business acumen suggests pricing your products in a way that includes materials, ideal hourly wage (starting at minimum wage), and including a profit margin. If you are not able to make a profit (after paying yourself for the time you put in), then selling finished products as a way to make a living is not possible. The reason is that if you are not able to make any profit, and if you are only earning a minimum wage from crocheting, then you will be essentially working a minimum wage job for your skill and experience.

Sticker price = Profit margin – (hourly wage * # of hours spent + materials)

Besides the obvious fact that a business without profit isn’t a business at all, the psychological effects of not getting paid what you are worth can be very demoralizing, and result in a loss of motivation.

The secondary problem with the scenario that I just described is that it’s extraordinarily difficult to earn even a minimum wage of about $10/hour for your time, so most of the time you will not only not make a profit for your work, but you will be losing money and paying yourself below minimum wage, hovering around sweatshop levels of pay.

To be able to price your products at a rate that includes a profit margin, it is necessary to reach a large audience of potential buyers that are able to afford your wares. This means that you will need to somehow reach a huge amount of potential shoppers through some form of marketing or advertising, that could include building a following on various social media platforms, paid advertising, extensive word of mouth, craft markets, etc. The larger the audience and the better you target them, the more likely you are able to actually get paid a price that allows you to continue running a viable business. This constitutes the basics of business marketing, but when trying to sell handmade crafts, it’s even more of an uphill battle because these types of goods are devalued because modern society does not value or understand the time, skill, and experience it takes to create a shawl or amigurumi toy.

That is to say, it’s as much or more work to market yourself as it is to create your products, just to be able to break even and make a small profit. Of course, you should pay yourself for the time you spend on marketing too, meaning that the equation I wrote out above doesn’t even encompass the full cost.

Unfortunately, because most crafters who sell finished goods do not price their work so that they are able to earn even a minimum wage, it further drives down the perceived value of handmade goods. Next time you see a crochet or knit cowl on Etsy, divide the price by 10 and ask yourself whether you could make it in the time allowed.

Actually, let’s try that. I just searched “crochet cowl” on Etsy and found this listing in the first row of results:

This cowl is being sold for twenty dollars with free shipping, meaning that if this seller paid themselves a minimum wage of $10/hour for their time crocheting, then this cowl would have taken them 2 hours to make. My estimation is that something like this would take me between 7-10 hours, plus $5 worth of yarn. This listing is also marked free shipping, which means it’s already included in the cost. Let’s say the shipping cost is $5, conservatively. If this seller is a very fast crocheter (let’s say it takes them 6 hours), and we take out the shipping and cost of materials from the price (20 – 10 = 10), then we’re left with 10 dollars with which to pay the seller for their time. 10/6(number of hours spent crocheting)= 1.66, so this seller is earning $1.66/hour with no profit.

If this person wanted to earn a profit, they would need to increase their price to $70 + profit margin, so likely around $100.

Let’s look at another example:

This listing, also in the first row of results, appears to be slightly better! Let’s go through the same estimations to find out how much they are paying themselves hourly. This cowl looks much more dense and thick, so my guess is that it would take me 15 hours to make. I will also assume that the materials cost $12 and shipping is $5 (this listing also includes the shipping cost in the sticker price). 59.53 – 12 – 5 = 42.53, so we have $42.53 left to pay our lone employee of this business. Once again, let’s assume this person crochets faster than me and will finish this cowl in 12 hours. 42.53/12 = 3.43, so this person is earning $3.42/hour and is making no profit. To adjust the price to include a profit, this person should charge $137 (12 + 5 + 12*10) + a profit margin, so maybe $160-$180.

I hope these two examples were illustrative in demonstrating how selling finished products, if improperly priced, is not a viable business model.

Nowadays, my business does not include selling finished products. Occasionally people might ask me whether they can purchase one of my creations that they have seen on Instagram, and I always quote them a price that’s equal to a minimum wage according to the formula I provided above — usually between 50 to 100 dollars. Though these numbers may seem high for the small crochet dolls I make, they are actually on the lower end of the spectrum and I allow that only because at this point I have a large surplus of dolls and feel that I need to downsize. In any case, most of the time these inquirers will decline to take my rate, but from my perspective, if I sell any of my precious handmade creations for anything less than minimum wage, I will feel like I have disrespected my time, skill, and work. I would significantly rather part with my creations for a customer who values my time than to one who does not realize they are paying me sweatshop labor rates to hand make a product for them. As a result of asking my worth, I happily sold one of my favorite dolls I made for $100 to a young woman purchasing a precious gift for her younger sister. For more thoughts on this topic, I recommend watching Chantal at Knitatude’s discussion on Instagram here, which inspired and helped formulate my own thoughts.

How can I earn money as a crochet designer?

Being a crochet designer entails creating your own patterns for garments, home decor items, toys, or anything else you can dream up! Patterns are generally created digitally on Canva, Google Docs, or Word, and sold as PDF files on Etsy, Ravelry, or other pattern databases. Becoming a designer is generally a process of trial and error that can be achieved through taking pattern designing classes, reading books about pattern designing, reviewing stitch dictionaries, consulting with tech editors and other crochet designers, and a lot of elbow grease.

Crochet designers make money by selling digital PDFS of original designs that are clear and professionally written and formatted patterns. These are sold on pattern databases such as Etsy and Ravelry and are a form of passive income.

If you want to learn how to create and sell PDF patterns, check out my in depth tutorial here (and PDF template!)

Earning money as a crochet designer yields a higher income than just selling finished products because this is a form of passive income. Passive income means that you are not exchanging time directly for money, since once you create a design you can sell it an unlimited amount of times. This means that theoretically the amount of money you can earn for one design is limitless, but practically it is bounded by the amount of marketing that you do.

Crochet designers can market their designs by building a following on social media, which is a yearslong endeavor, as well as through word of mouth and paid advertising.

If you want to get access to all the exact tools and resources I use to take beautiful, professional photos and build my social media presence, check out the Business Resources section of my Recommended Supplies article!

This is a good place to start your business because it is a low stakes way to earn some extra money on the side and potential to grow, but it probably will not yield a full time income simply because patterns are often priced between three and ten dollars. It is possible to get to a full time income given the passive nature of selling digital products, but requires many years of building a very loyal following on Instagram, Etsy, Pinterest, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

How can I earn money as a crochet blogger?

Being a crochet designer and content creator entails being a designer as detailed above, but also engaging in passive income streams involving advertising for third parties. This usually takes the form of building up an audience online on one or multiple platforms, and then being paid either through ads or through brand sponsorships for third parties to be able to market to the audience that you have built. The core of this endeavor, building an audience, is extremely difficult and time consuming, but is the essence of a crochet business that will be lucrative, passive, and rewarding. In this category, your time is spent about half on pattern designing and half on “computer work,” that is, managing social media, writing content, editing videos, etc.

Crochet bloggers make money through ad revenue, affiliate links, selling PDF patterns on Etsy and Ravelry, and brand sponsorships. This can be achieved by building a substantial audience through consistent and valuable creation of content such as crochet patterns, tutorials, and product reviews.

For crocheters, content usually entails crochet patterns, but can also include tutorials, pattern roundups, tips and tricks, and anything else that might interest your target audience.

To build an audience on any platform, including Instagram, a blog, YouTube, and Pinterest, you will need to learn the specific algorithmic nuances of each and then begin producing content that is optimized for each platform. For example, Instagram best practices include posting consistently and frequently with bright, clear images, engaging captions, relevant captions, and networking with other small businesses. On the other hand, Pinterest encourages pinning 20-30 times a day with different images and varying destination links.

The key to building an audience is to learn best practices for any given platform, create content consistently, build authority in your niche, and collaborate with other small business owners to help each other grow.

After building an audience to a certain milestone (e.g. 3k followers on Instagram, 10k sessions on your blog, 1k subscribers on YouTube), you should change your focus to monetizing your audience. On a blog, you can apply to ad networks like Ezoic, Mediavine, and AdThrive to place ads on your website. On Instagram, you can reach out to brands for collaborative sponsorships, and YouTube accounts are monetizable after one thousand subscribers and four thousand watch hours. At this point, you should have substantial revenue each month, approximately $500-1,000 monthly. As you continue to grow on your platforms and are able to apply to premium ad networks and work with bigger brands and increase your traffic, your revenue will increase accordingly.

How do I know if I should try to make a living crocheting?

All of these methods are obviously extremely different in terms of the activities you will spend most of your time doing, and also in terms of how much work you need to put in to see any income at all.

As you’ve learned, being a content creator and crochet designer is the only way to make an income substantial enough to replace a full time salary, but all of these methods are viable as a form of side income if you just want to bring in some extra cash or to fuel your yarn habit.

If you’re just interested in making a quick buck, selling some finished products might be the way to go (if you price it right!), but if you’re in it for the long haul, starting a crochet blog, YouTube channel, and Instagram account is the way to go. I got started blogging with Sewrella’s course, the Sewrella Method, so feel free to check it out if you also want some guidance.

Again, for solid recommendations as the educational resources I used, check out this link here for my personal recommendations on resources for growing a crochet business!

I hope this article was useful in helping you decide how you can turn your hobby into a side hustle or career! If you have any questions or want to know more please let me know in the comments below or through the contact page. I would love to help in any way I can!

More like this:

• 20 Cutest FREE Crochet Baby Toy Patterns (for beginners!)
• 14 Quick and Easy Crochet Keychains for Bags (Stashbuster!)
• 12 Cutest Free Crochet Gnome Patterns (beginner friendly!)
• 9 Cutest Totoro Crochet Patterns (from Studio Ghibli!)
• 9 Fun Crochet Jellyfish Patterns!

The post Can you make money crocheting? (in 2024!) appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.

How to design amigurumi in 7 steps:

1. Get inspired from the world.
2. Understand the building blocks of amigurumi.
3. Draw a sketch of the amigurumi design.
4. Crochet shapes that match the sketch.
5. Make a second version to ensure accuracy.
6. Get the pattern tested by a volunteer.
7. Type up the final pattern, and publish the final amigurumi design.

These are steps that I’ve come up with from my own hands-on experience of designing amigurumi. I’ll be the first to say that I’m no expert and still have a lot to learn, but I want to share what I’ve learned so far so that you can also create your own amigurumi!

As a general rule, designing amigurumi is a process that begins with inspiration. Next, understand the basic shapes and stitches of amigurumi and draw a rough sketch of the idea. After crocheting shapes that correspond with the sketch, get the pattern tested and then publish.

If you want a sneak peek into all the secret tools I use to write and publish my amigurumi patterns, check out the Designer and Business Resources section of my Recommended Supplies page!

More blog posts for amigurumi beginners:

• Easiest Crochet Whale for Absolute Beginners!

• My Foolproof Guide to Crocheting Amigurumi for Beginners
• What’s the best stuffing for amigurumi? (+ how to stuff!)
• How to Sew Amigurumi Parts Together (easy photo tutorial!)

Why design amigurumi?

If you want to design amigurumi yourself, you’re probably someone who has been crocheting amigurumi for a little while and are excited to make some ideas of your own come to reality.

Are you wondering what the difference between amigurumi and crochet is? Check out this in depth blog post that breaks down all the differences and similarities here.

If you aren’t familiar with amigurumi, no worries—but you’re probably going to want to have some practice following other people’s amigurumi patterns. Check out my recommendations for the easiest amigurumi patterns here!

For a breakdown of what amigurumi is, whether it’s easy, and what you need to get started, check out my blog post here!

This isn’t to say that it’s impossible to design amigurumi without having made one before, just that it’ll be a lot harder because you won’t be as familiar with the shapes.

Learning to design amigurumi yourself can seem a little intimidating at first—it definitely was that for me—but the reality is that the actual mechanics are merely a function of a lot of trial and error and nowhere near impossible. Sometimes a pattern can take a while to come together, especially if you’re a perfectionist, but it’s really worth it to hold something that you really truly created all by yourself.

But never fear! I’ve compiled an in-depth breakdown to help you get through your first amigurumi design. Each one after that will be easier, I promise! The steps listed down below are a good guideline for a start to finish process on how to design your first amigurumi. Not every step is necessary, but I’ve tried to be as detailed as possible to ensure success. I’ll also walk you through my process of designing one of my patterns to help you understand my thought process. Read on!

1. Get inspired from the world

This might be the most tricky step when getting ready to design amigurumi—but also the most exciting! Getting inspired just means coming up with a general idea for what you might want to make.

This process might start with a general idea, like an object or animal. Then, you might think about some smaller elements you can add to that animal to make it unique or interesting, to create some personality. However, if you’re just starting out, it’s totally fine to just have an animal or object in mind that you want to create.

Your inspiration can come from anywhere, and I usually find my inspiration by noting cute images I see around me in the world or online that I want to translate into crochet. I keep a list on my phone of ideas that I have so that when I’m ready to move to the next step of the process, I have lots of ideas already at hand to look through!

A few examples from my notes app are:

• chubby ducklings
• huge carrot
• little girl in a red rain jacket

These are all just ideas that I came up with from reading books, looking outside, and scrolling Instagram. In reality, I’m always looking for pattern ideas, so it’s always in the back of my mind to keep an eye out them. Once you flip that switch, it’s much easier to get in the habit of gathering ideas at all times.

If you already have a rough idea of what you want to make, like an animal or character, you can get a more specific idea of what it looks like by searching it on Google Images to look at actual pictures of it or see drawings and other interpretations.

A note on intellectual property:

A note of caution: there’s a fine line between getting inspiration and straight up copying. Plagiarism is never okay, so make sure to never represent someone else’s amigurumi design or pattern instructions as your own.

A good way to avoid this is to not look up crocheted versions of your idea. For instance, if you wanted to make a crochet strawberry, look up pictures of real or cartoon strawberries instead of crochet strawberries. That way, you get ideas for elements you could incorporate, but ensure that your design wasn’t based off another amigurumi design.

The Little Prince Example: Inspiration

For example, when I designed the little prince pattern, I was inspired by the children’s book that I adore. I loved the idea of the little prince and I wanted to make a little crochet doll of him. To get more definite idea of what I wanted my crochet doll to look like, I knew I wanted to incorporate chibi body proportions. That way, my amigurumi design would have unique elements that came from my own style as well as being inspired by the book character. I also decided which outfit I wanted him to be wearing, as well as how I was going to represent that in crochet.

For instance, I knew that the green jacket was doable, but it wasn’t going to look like a full on bodysuit that often appears in the pictures, since that would be too bulky for my small doll.

2. Know your shapes and stitches!

Before you move further in your amigurumi design journey, make sure that you have a few basic shapes and stitches in your arsenal.

All amigurumi can be broken down into a collection of basic shapes, on top of which there are some embellishments. If you’ve crocheted amigurumi before, you know that most legs and arms are formed the same way—they’re essentially cylinders of different lengths. Heads are all variations of spheres, and ears are hemispheres.

If you’ve ever been confused about how to crochet the perfect flat or rounded circle, check out my blog post or grab the cheat sheet below!

The most basic shapes used in amigurumi design are:

• spheres
  • heads, or other round elements.
• cylinders
  • arms, legs, essentially anything that’s an elongated sphere. This can be extremely long, like for a monkey tail, or it can be extremely short and flattened for ears.
• hemispheres
  • spheres that are half finished, usually to make ears.
• squares
  • these are flat and worked in rows instead of rounds, and used to make clothing items or detail work/accessories
• lines
  • usually made with foundation crochet stitches or chains and used for hair, suspender straps, bag straps (for dolls), scarves, and other accessories.
• circles
  • flat circles worked in a round from a magic ring are used for detail work on amigurumi, such as spots or a white belly
• ovals
  • similar to circles, but requires working around a foundation chain in the beginning to achieve an ovular shape

I created an entire guide on how to crochet basic shapes and more in this blog post!

If you want a cheat sheet printable with all of the written patterns for these shapes, as well as instructions on how to modify them, sign up below!

A few examples on how to use basic shapes from my patterns:

Being able to recognize basic shapes in amigurumi is key to be able to create your own. Without knowing that each structure is made up of a bunch of basic shapes, amigurumi design can be overwhelming and confusing. But it really isn’t!

Before you move on to the next stage, make sure that you can reimagine your idea as a collection of shapes. Figure out structural elements you’ll be using, and then practice making them in isolation.

Trying to make a ball in various sizes is a lot more manageable than trying to make a perfectly sized fox head, so just start with making balls of various sizes without looking at a pattern. Once you’re able to do this, continue with other basic shapes so that you develop a sense of how many stitches it takes to produces a certain size of cylinder or square.

Knowing stitches is a little less complicated. Amigurumi usually only require single crochet stitches, but sometimes half double and double crochet stitches will be necessary. These are incorporated mostly into clothing items or other accessories that don’t require as much rigidity.

More like this:

• How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps
• Make Real Money Selling Crochet at Craft Fairs
• How to Crochet Basic Shapes for Amigurumi (+ sculptural crochet!)
• How to Sell Crochet Patterns (With a PDF Template)
• 9 Lessons I Learned Starting a Crochet Business (+ my tips!)
• Can you make money crocheting? (How I did it!)

Stitches and… pixels?

Getting familiar with stitches just means getting a basic feel for how big each stitch is. Every single crochet stitch is about the size of a square, so amigurumi design is a little like creating pixel art, but in 3D. If you use fewer crochet stitches in the round, then the sphere or cylinder will look very jagged (imagine if you were watching a YouTube video in 144p). However, if you use many stitches in the round then the overall effect will be much smoother (think 1080p!).

Of course, all this also depends on the weight of your yarn and how big you want your amigurumi to be in the end. Thin yarn will make your amigurumi look more clean and detailed, but will take a long time. Getting familiar with crochet stitches means developing an understanding for how much space each crochet stitch will take up, which can only be attained through trial and error.

The Little Prince: Amigurumi Design Example

To continue my example of the little prince, I broke my design of him down like this:

• sphere for the head
• five cylinders for the two arms and legs, plus the body
• square for the jacket
• many lines for the belt, bowtie, and hair

3. Draw a sketch

The next step is to draw a rough sketch of your idea using the basic shapes and stitches in your crocheting vocabulary. If you’re a little iffy about your drawing skills, never fear! I am the least artistically talented when it comes to drawing, but you don’t need to know anything about it to do this step.

The purpose of this step is to get your idea down on paper in a way that you can visualize your amigurumi and begin to get a sense of its proportions. Using the basic shapes as building blocks, break your design down into spheres, cylinders, and lines in your sketch.

Figuring out the body proportions now will save you lots of trial and error time later on and help you get a good idea of what your amigurumi will look like. For more about why proportions are important, click here for a blog post I wrote on making amigurumi cute!

What should I draw?

The most important details to incorporate are any elements that you want to crochet. During this process, you also need to think about how you’re going to actually crochet an element of your idea, and what shape you’re going to base it on, so that you can sketch the shape and size. If you don’t have a definite plan for how you’re going to actually make that jacket or flower out of yarn, then don’t sketch it.

Once you have all the elements down on the page, keep playing around with proportions until it looks the way you imagined it in your mind. If possible, make the drawing to scale. However, if your amigurumi idea is really large, then just make it as proportionally accurate as possible, thought it might take a little more skill to make everything the right size.

The Little Prince Amigurumi Design Example: Sketch

Here’s my sketch for the little prince. As you can see, it’s super rough from an artistic standpoint, but the most important pieces are there.

If you’re finding this blog post helpful, pin it to your Pinterest boards here!

4. Crochet and write down the steps

Now it’s time to finally create your vision in yarn! Create each part of your design, following the sketch you made to get an idea of the proportions of each piece.

Write down the exact steps that you’re taking on a piece of paper or Word document as you go along. Include the round/row number, number of stitches, increases or decreases, and total number of stitches at the end. You may create some kind of shorthand after a while, but it’s totally fine to write every single stitch down at first.

Make sure to check that all the numbers make sense as you go along. This is why it’s important to note the total number of stitches, because you can easily do basic multiplication to check whether your pattern is internally consistent and also check against the actual crochet piece in your hands.

As you work your way through with trial and error you may notice that the head is accidentally too big, or you didn’t start decreasing soon enough and now the head piece looks too oblong to be a sphere.

If and when this happens, don’t worry! It happens to everyone all the time. Just frog back to where you were happy with how it looked, cross off a few lines in your pattern, and keep going.

This is where your practice with basic shapes will pay off. If you have a better idea of how much to increase and decrease to get the exact size of head that you want, then you might be able to make what you’re envisioning on the first or second try.

If you’re mostly going in blind, it could take a lot more tries before you get it right. However, all of those tries count as practice, and every single time you’re learning something valuable that will help you make faster progress in the future.

About the elephant in the room (the math!)

I highly recommend that the total number of stitches always be a number that is very easily divided (e.g. 16, 24, 30), because that means that you have a lot of control over how much to increase or decrease. To do this, you should also increase and decrease by even/easily divided numbers.

For instance, if my current round had 24 stitches, and I wanted the round to get a lot larger in the next row, I can (sc, inc) x12, adding 12 stitches, to get a total of 36 stitches in the next round. That was easy because 24 is an even number that can be divided by 2, a feat not so easily achieved by odd numbers.

If I wanted to just increase by a little bit, I still have some options. I can (sc3, inc) x6, adding 6 stitches, to get 30 stitches in the next round. I can even (sc5, inc) x4, adding 4 stitches for a total of 28.

Finally, I could add a very small number of stitches by crocheting (sc11, inc) x2, just adding 2 stitches to gain a total of 26 stitches in the next round.

However, most numbers are not so nice. All odd numbers are very ugly to deal with, and some even numbers that do not have many divisors can also be annoying (22, 26, 32, etc.).

Basically, I strongly suggest sticking to multiples of 4 and 6 for total number of stitches per round. It’ll make your life easier and save a lot of math headaches (the worst kind)!

A note for those who want to publish a pattern:

If your goal is to eventually publish a pattern based on this design, then during this step you should take some process photos. This means getting pictures of each part as you make it, as well as steps during assembly.

For the exact camera, editing apps, and pattern design software that I use, check out my Recommended Supplies page and scroll to the bottom!

Taking pictures as you go eliminates the need to redo the entire pattern for the sake of getting process shots, which can save you a lot of time, especially if your amigurumi is very large or otherwise time consuming to make.

However, if you’re very unconfident about designing amigurumi, then making a second version of your amigurumi for the purpose of taking process shots and reviewing the pattern is not a bad idea (more on this below). This note is just for those who know that they want to publish the pattern and are confident that they will get it right on their first try.

This what my notebook looks like when I’m going through this process!

5. Redo based on the pattern

Now that you have a finished amigurumi that you’re happy with and have a copy of the pattern written down, congratulations! The hard part is over and all that’s left is tying up loose ends.

This step is technically optional if you’re extremely confident in your pattern, but I highly recommend redoing your design based on your newly written pattern. For new amigurumi pattern designers, the new notation system and unfamiliarity with recording crochet stitches can lead to lots of math mistakes or incongruences between pattern and product.

If this is your first pattern, it’s really worth it to go back and check it yourself to see if there’s something wrong before sending it to anyone else. That way, there are multiple layers to make sure that your pattern is the best that it could possibly be.

However, if you already have a few amigurumi under your belt and are reasonably sure that the pattern you’ve written represents the amigurumi you have just made, it’s okay to skip this step.

6. Pattern testing!

Pattern testing is the main way that I double check my patterns. Create your first draft on a Word or Google document and include the pictures you took along the way along with any extra instructions, making sure to include abbreviations you use and materials. (For the full breakdown of what I put in my amigurumi patterns, click here!)

I usually send my first draft off to two makers who check my pattern for math mistakes and places which need more explanation or pictures.

This is a helpful process because fresh eyes and different experiences can help see technical problems I may have missed my first time around, as well as point out areas that I didn’t explain very well or were otherwise confusing.

How can I find pattern testers?

A pattern tester is just someone who is willing to follow your pattern and recreate your design. The ideal pattern designer should be the skill level of your target audience. If the pattern is more challenging, make sure that the pattern tester has some experience, and vice versa.

You can find pattern testers by asking your friends or anyone you know who crochets and is willing to test your pattern for you. Alternatively, you can advertise on social media that you’re looking for pattern testers. Instagram is best for this and already has a community of crafters who are familiar with what pattern testing looks like and demands from them.

All the same, if you’re looking to reach out to the community on Instagram, here are some guidelines:

Finding pattern testers on Instagram

1. Use appropriate hashtags (e.g. #crochet, #crochetersofinstagram) to reach a wider audience of people who might be willing and excited to pattern test for you
2. When you have determined who your pattern testers will be, let them know how soon you expect them to finish (eg. 48 hours, 72 hours, a week), and what kind of feedback you want to hear. This is important because some people might feel hesitant about giving constructive criticism. However, if you make it clear that you want them to point out as many areas of improvement as possible, both of you will be more comfortable and happy with the process. Also, ask them for their email so that you can email a PDF copy of your pattern to them (Instagram does not allow file sharing).
3. As they give you feedback, take it into consideration. Remember, not all feedback needs to be implemented in some way, but everything is good to consider and take into account when you revise your pattern.
4. Gift the pattern tester the final version of your pattern as a thank you!

Here’s an example of the most recent tester call I made. You can’t see the hashtags, but rest assured there are many of them later on in the caption. If you want to see them, find that post on my Instagram feed!

7. Finalize and publish your amigurumi design

Finalize your pattern by making any edits that your pattern testers brought up. This may include taking a few more process photos, rearranging the order of construction, and correcting any math mistakes.

If you plan to publish your pattern, you should consider what platform you want to do it on and whether you want it to be free or paid.

Making patterns freely available is a good option if you’re building a blog and want to drive traffic to a site with advertisements, but it might mean that you won’t see much compensation in the short run. The upside is that you will be able to share your pattern with many more people and that can be very rewarding!

Listing your pattern on Etsy is the easiest option for paid patterns because Etsy itself is a search engine, allowing your pattern to be discovered more easily. However, Etsy does take a percentage off every sale and you need to pay a small fee for every month that your listing is up. That said, it is still the method of choice, even though some pattern designers have begun listing their patterns on their own websites to avoid the Etsy costs.

For a more in depth breakdown on how to write a PDF pattern (and what to include in it), check out this blog post here and grab my free template!

And there you have it! This is my 7 step process for designing amigurumi yourself. Although I’ve covered a lot in this guide, it is by no means exhaustive. If you have questions about any specific parts of this blog post or requests for topics for me to cover in the future, let me know in the comments below and I’d love to address them in the future.

If you’re thinking of making some extra income through crochet, check out my analysis here on the best (and worst) methods to make money from crocheting and how you can do it full time, as well as all the resources I’ve personally used to make it happen!

Some other topics I’ve blogged about recently:

• 6 Easy Tricks to Make Amigurumi Cuter
• Can I Crochet Amigurumi with Embroidery Thread?

If this post was helpful to you, pin it here!

The post How to Design Amigurumi in 7 Steps in 2024 appeared first on Little World of Whimsy.