How to write a crochet pattern (beginner's amigurumi guide)
12 min read
Writing your first crochet pattern follows five precise steps: find an idea, make a prototype, take photos and verify your instructions, lay out your PDF, and promote it. Each step takes time and rigor, but they all matter if you want to share the best creations with fellow crocheters. Tools like Woolmoot now make the layout effortless and automate stitch counts, abbreviations and the index, so you can focus on what really matters: creating.
You have been crocheting for a while now. You have made dozens and dozens of plushies from other makers' patterns. You may have even started imagining your own designs, scribbling instructions in a notebook only you can read, hoping to share them with others one day. Or maybe you posted your creations on Instagram and people started asking where to find the pattern, and you had no idea what to answer.
It is time to write your own patterns properly. But where do you start? In this article, we walk you through every step to write (and even promote) your first crochet pattern.
Step 1
Find the idea
The starting point that gives life to everything that follows.
- Inspiration is everywhere: Pinterest, your sketchbooks, what you feel like making.
- Do not confuse inspiration and plagiarism.
- A precise idea, even one that evolves, beats a blank page.
Before writing anything, you need an idea. If you already have one, you can skip this step and jump to the next one.
If you have the urge to create your own pattern but no precise idea yet, do not worry. Finding inspiration has never been easier. Take a stroll on Pinterest, scribble a few sketches and notes in a notebook only you can read. Look at what inspires you the most, what you love, and start shaping your idea around it.
Be careful not to confuse inspiration and plagiarism (we will come back to this complex topic in a future article). Reproducing another crochet plushie's design without adding any originality will not make you a designer (and risks turning a few people in the community against you).
Once you have a precise idea in mind (even if it might still evolve along the way), it is time to make it real.
Step 2
Make the prototype
The longest part, and often the most exciting one.
- Crochet and write the instructions as you go, never afterwards.
- Note the stitch count at the end of every round.
- Keep every material reference: yarn, hook, safety eyes.
- Accept that the initial idea may shift along the way.
This is the longest part, but also the most interesting one in our opinion. This is when your creation comes to life through many tests, arrangements of different pieces, and most of all, a lot, a lot of stitches.
Start crocheting your idea to give it life. The most important rule not to skip: write down every step right after you have done it, and remember to add the stitch count after each round. No need to wait until the head or the body is fully done: you might forget details (for instance, which stitch in round 12 was where you started a color change). And those notes are what your pattern will be built on, so make sure they are also readable by you later. It would be a shame otherwise.
Other important things to write down at this stage: the yarn you use, the hook, and the safety eyes (if any). You will need this information in your PDF. And trust us, nothing is more frustrating than finishing a creation, having written down everything EXCEPT the eye size, realizing it at the end, and struggling with a ruler to measure eyes already in place. There can be as little as 2 mm between sizes: mistakes happen quickly.
This is usually when your original idea will evolve: you will realize that the specific shape you wanted does not quite work the way you imagined, or that certain colors do not go that well together after all. No worries, that is completely normal. As long as the final result is one you love, it is the main thing.
Step 3
Take photos and verify the pattern
A second build to validate every line of instruction.
- Remake your plushie following your notes as if they were an outside pattern.
- Photograph the process to illustrate the trickier passages.
- Pick photos that are useful before they are pretty.
- Crop, tune the light, highlight the meaningful information.
You have the final result in your hands, bravo! A huge part of the work is done, you only have to finalize everything. This stage may still take a little time, but it is what allows you to sell or share your pattern with confidence. So it is time to remake your plushie (or creation) a second time.
Take your notes and follow them as if you were following another designer's pattern. While you create, tweak your notes, fix your rounds or your stitch counts. And above all, take this chance to photograph the process.
Adding photos to a pattern is not just to make it pretty. Some stitches and techniques are hard to describe, and crochet is a visual art above all. What better than visuals to express it fully?
To take your photos, the simplest setup is a desktop tripod that lets you shoot from above, paired with your phone.
Tip
Turn on your phone's "voice photo" feature: saying "capture" takes a picture, freeing both your hands to show what matters.
Pattern photos are not meant to be pretty, they are meant to be useful. You want to show how to work an "inc3sc" but you use chenille yarn? In that example, switching temporarily to cotton is worth it to make your demonstration visually clear. Watch your lighting (especially with very light or very dark yarn, which do not photograph the same).
Also remember to frame the key information well. Want to show the eye spacing? Do not shoot from afar where you see the whole plushie body: focus on the subject so the useful details (such as how many stitches are visible between the two eyes) stand out. And do not hesitate to lightly retouch your photos to boost contrast or crop them properly (Lightroom on phone is perfect for that).
Bonus tip
Use a yarn needle to point at, for instance, the next stitch to crochet.
Yes, this is extra work. But this is the work that earns you 5-star Etsy reviews, with customers fully happy with their make, because they did not have to guess your techniques.
If you feel confident, you can do steps 2 and 3 at the same time to save time. But this is aimed at more experienced designers (it will come quickly to you too, with practice).
Step 4
Write and lay out the pattern
The moment your notes become a real product.
- Pick the right tool: Canva, Adobe Acrobat Studio or Woolmoot.
- Structure the PDF: cover, index, materials, instructions, legal notice.
- Use abbreviations to lighten the reading flow.
- Break the pattern down into clear, linear sections.
You have your notes, your photos and two prototypes. It is time to move on to the PDF layout, to have a document you can share.
There are plenty of tools for this. The best-known are Canva and Adobe Acrobat Studio. And there is a newer tool that makes PDF layout easier in many ways: Woolmoot (of course). But we will come back to it at the end.
Open your tool of choice and, if needed, set up your document. A4 is still the most popular format because it can be printed. If you only plan to share your pattern for free on Instagram, prefer the Insta format (1080 × 1350 at the time of writing this article, but check, they like to change it regularly).
Then you can lay out the different sections. Here is how it usually looks.
Page 1: the cover
This is the cover page of the pattern. Give it a title, add a great photo of your creation. You can also add the designer's information (you, in this case): your Instagram handle, the URL of your website or your shop.
Page 2: the index (optional)
If your pattern is long, adding an index is worth it, especially if it is interactive (clicking a title jumps directly to the relevant page). List the page numbers where to find the different information: the materials list, the different parts to crochet, and the usage notice.
Page 3: materials and abbreviations
Write down everything you used to design your plushie: which yarn (and how many skeins), which hook, whether you used stuffing or not, and the various tools needed (scissors, yarn needle, stitch marker). This will help the person following your pattern know which yarn to use to get the same result as you.
Tip
Add the materials list to your product page if you sell your pattern. Nothing is more frustrating, as a buyer, than not having that information before checkout. If I want a quick afternoon project, how do I know whether I already have everything in stock if it is not on the product page?
For abbreviations, this will help the reader stay on the same page as you. And if your pattern is in English, specify whether you use US or UK terminology: it makes a big difference.
By the way, why work with abbreviations? A pattern is a stream of information, round by round. Each term can be repeated several times in a single round, and writing "single crochet" or "half double crochet" dozens of times weighs the reading down a lot.
For example:
Row 16: (single crochet x3, decrease, single crochet x3) x6 [42]
becomes
Row 16: (3sc, dec, 3sc) x6 [42]
It is also in the abbreviations section that you can spell out the way you write your instructions, for instance:
(...) x N: repeat these instructions N times*...*: repeat these instructions in the same stitch[...]: stitch count at the end of the round
Not sure which abbreviations to use? Here are the most common stitches and their everyday abbreviations in English (US).
| Stitch | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Chain | ch |
| Slip stitch | slst |
| Single crochet | sc |
| Half double crochet | hdc |
| Double crochet | dc |
| Treble | tr |
| Double treble | dtr |
| Stitch | st |
Page 4 and beyond: the instructions
This is where you put the directions that will let your readers reproduce your design. Note them down round by round, being as precise as possible.
Break your pattern down into different parts (the head, the body, the ears, the accessory, etc.). If you use different yarns or different hook sizes, specify for each part what your reader needs.
Some sewing is needed between two pieces? State between which rounds they should be sewn. Some pieces need stuffing? Same idea, add the instruction between your rounds (not at the end, once the piece is closed up), and specify whether a lot is needed or just a little to match your shape.
The flow of the pattern must be as linear as possible for the person following it. They should not have to jump back and forth between information to guess in which order to do things. This is also where you can add your photos to support your instructions.
Last page: usage notice and legal notice
Some prefer to place it right after the first page, up to you. A "usage notice" or legal information page is not the most fun part, but it is what protects you. Specify what the buyer is and is not allowed to do after purchasing your pattern:
- Reshare the pattern without your consent? No thanks. You do not want your hard work to be released in the wild and that effort to never benefit you.
- Sell the items made from this pattern? Some allow it, others do not. Up to you to decide what you allow.
- Use the pattern in teaching events? State it clearly.
Tip
Look at the patterns already in your library. Notice how they are built to draw inspiration, and do not forget any piece of information you find important.
Step 5
Promote your pattern
The release that turns a PDF into a living product.
- Run a tester call to gather qualified feedback.
- Benefit from testers sharing your pattern with their own community.
- Publish on your shop, Etsy or Ravelry.
You have exported your PDF, it looks beautiful, you are proud (and you should be). Now is the time to share it with the world.
If you want feedback from other designers on your work, this is when you launch a tester call on your socials. The people who test it, in exchange for receiving your pattern for free, will give you feedback that surfaces typos: a stitch count error, instructions that are unclear somewhere, etc. The kind of detail you cannot spot anymore after spending countless hours on the project, and which would be a shame to let through. These people also help you spread the word about your pattern by sharing it with their own community.
Once your pattern has cleared the final testing rounds, you can publish it on your shop, Etsy or Ravelry.