Setting prices for amigurumi can be very tricky. I thought I’d offer some pointers that may help you to set reasonable prices if you want to sell the amigurumi you’ve crocheted.

As you may know, I allow people to sell items made from any of my patterns (provided they give me credit as the designer). As my time is more than filled with creating new designs, running my shop and blog, and providing assistance to my customers, I can’t accept crochet commissions any more, so I’ve started a list of people who sell PlanetJune-designed toys for people who want to buy finished PlanetJune items. If you sell items made from my patterns, have an online shop, and would like to be added to the list, please let me know!

Although the following post is geared towards online amigurumi sellers, there’s probably some value in reading it if you sell any kind of handmade goods. Read on for my pricing tips…

Common Handmade Pricing Strategies

Note: I’m ignoring consideration of profit above material and labour costs and the wholesale/retail price factor – these are outside the scope of this post, which isn’t aimed at people who want to sell their handmade work as a serious business, but for hobbyists who’d like to support their yarn- and pattern-buying habit while they enjoy their hobby, and maybe not fill their house to overflowing with all the amigurumi they’ve made!

Very simply, there are two general schools of thought for pricing handmade goods:

• Set prices based on an hourly ‘wage’ for yourself plus the costs of materials
• Set prices based on material costs multiplied by 3 (or some other number)

Now, neither of these strategies work at all well for amigurumi:

Hourly wage: Unless you can successfully market yourself as creating ‘art toys’, it’s very difficult to make any sales if you charge a decent hourly wage for everything you crochet. (And if you’re crocheting while you watch TV or chat, should you really be earning the same amount per hour as if you were giving 100% concentration to your task..?)

Costs x3: While this may be an appropriate figure for, e.g. a simple crocheted blanket with a repetitive stitch pattern, the material costs for making an amigurumi are miniscule (typically a fraction of a ball of yarn, a handful of stuffing, and a pair of safety eyes) and it can take just as long to make a toy that uses less than 1/2 a ball of yarn as to crochet a blanket that takes 5 or 6 balls, so the resulting price would be far too low if you use this formula for amigurumi.

So, as an amigurumi seller, you’re looking for some middle ground: a price that covers all your material costs and accounts for both the time taken and the complexity of the project (i.e. the concentration required to complete your item), but still gives you a number that your potential customers will find acceptable.

Know the Market

What do other people charge for similar items? Look at the other shops on my list and see what they charge. You should also look at other Etsy amigurumi sellers to get a broader picture.

Don’t try to beat their prices – it’s not a competition, and doing that will damage the market for both you and the other sellers! But do look critically at your work and theirs:

• If you think your items look as good as theirs, charge the same (or more, if you want).
• If you think yours are better, charge more (unless they have no sold items and you think that’s because their prices are unrealistically high).
• If yours look worse, why is that? Don’t charge less; instead look at this as an opportunity to improve your listings by either improving your crocheting and finishing skills, or by learning to take better photos, as applicable.

Your photos will make a huge difference in what sells and what doesn’t. Is there anything that makes your items more special than other amigurumi sellers? Something that may justify higher prices? Show that in your photos, if possible, but otherwise, make sure it’s clear from your item description. If your prices are the same and your photos are equally appealing, the description may also be the deciding factor for your customer.

If you’re just starting out with your shop, you may decide to start by pricing slightly lower than others, to help you gain some initial sales and positive feedback from customers, and then raise your prices a bit once you’re more established. Please don’t sell yourself too short though, by setting your prices far below what other comparable items sell for. If your items don’t sell as well as you’d hoped, there’s nothing stopping you from lowering your prices, or offering sales and discounts, at a later date.

Hidden costs of selling online

Notes:

If you started out by selling items to friends and family, or at in-person craft shows, you may be tempted to price your online items the same way. But remember you’re paying 20c per listing (whether it sells or not) plus 6.5% (if it sells) to Etsy, and PayPal will take 30c plus 2.9% (or 3.9% from an overseas customer), so your online prices should be higher by that amount, at least.

e.g. on a $20 item you’ll pay:

$0.20 fixed fee to list the item on Etsy
$1.30 to Etsy when it sells (6.5% of $20)
$0.30 fixed fee to PayPal
$0.58 percentage to PayPal (2.9% of $20)

Those small costs start to add up: that’s a total of $2.38 that you’ve lost by selling the same online vs a cash in-person sale. So you should consider charging $22.50 instead of $20 for that item, to cover those costs, unless you want to accept that you’ll only receive the lower amount.

In general, the amount you need to add is:

Amount to raise prices by to cover PayPal and Etsy fees = $0.50 + 0.094 x (in-person sale price)

Notes: If you regularly sell to overseas customers, use 0.104 instead of 0.094 in the above calculation. This also assumes that your item sells within 4 months of listing, otherwise you’d need to pay an additional 20c to Etsy for relisting it.

(If all this seems too complicated, you can use an Etsy Fee calculator and it’ll do the math for you!)

Shipping costs

Do your shipping costs include all your costs? Aside from postage, are you buying a bubble mailer, a box, bubble wrap, tape, mailing labels…? Any of these add to your costs, and you should include them in your shipping charge (or raise all your item prices by that amount, if you want to make your shipping costs look more reasonable), or you’ll end up taking a loss each time you ship a package.

Also, remember that the fee calculation above also applies to shipping costs, so you’ll need to add 9.4% (6.5% selling + 2.9% processing) to your actual shipping costs (e.g. that works out as 47c if you charge $5 for shipping) or you’ll be losing money! Once you’ve worked out the cost of postage plus all your packing and shipping materials, you need to add the fees like this:

Shipping charge = 1.094 x (postage cost plus packaging materials cost)

Note: if you offer shipping to overseas customers, use 1.104 instead of 1.094 in the above calculation.

These little amounts add up, and you don’t want to end up paying for packaging materials out of your own pocket.

Underpricing: Warning Signs

• Are you selling items faster than you can replace them?
• Are you crocheting every spare minute of the day to keep your shop filled?
• Are your hands or wrists starting to hurt?
• Are you starting to wonder why you’re even doing this?

All these are signs that you need to raise your prices, if you want to keep selling what you’ve made. Yes, you’ll see less sales if you do that, but if you make the same amount of money while selling fewer items, you’ll find it easier to keep up with demand, to avoid giving yourself a repetitive stress injury, and to (hopefully) not lose your love of crochet – which, after all, is why you’re doing this in the first place, isn’t it?

Go Forth and Sell!

I hope this has given you some points to consider, whether you’re setting your prices for the first time, or considering updating your pricing scheme. It’s perfectly okay to crochet for friends and family for the cost of yarn and patterns (or for free), if that’s what you want to do, but do remember not to offer those same bargain prices to all your customers, or you’ll burn yourself out and your hobby will turn into slave labour! You’re worth more than that, but ultimately, only you can decide how much money you need to make in order for it to be worth your while to sell your handmade goods.

Good luck with your selling!

(Please send me your details if you’d like to be added to my list of sellers – see the bottom of the linked page for details – I hope it will send potential customers your way for items you’ve already crocheted, and/or generate custom order requests for you. I’m getting a lot of requests for cacti and succulents at the moment..!)

Do you have any tips to add to mine? Or good (or bad) experiences with selling amigurumi? Please share them in the comments below!

I can hardly believe I’ve finally reached this point – this has probably been my longest crochet design process to date – so I’m very happy to present to you my first patterns of 2012: Succulent Collections 1 & 2!

I spent weeks (during my break from designing in December) researching all the different types of succulents to try to find a selection that would look interesting and varied, are fairly common, and would work when translated into crochet. I narrowed it down to 10, to give me a little wiggle room if a couple of them didn’t work out the way I was hoping. And here are the final 8:

Succulent Collection 1, L-R: Spoon Jade ‘ET Fingers’; Sempervivum ‘Hen & Chicks’; Euphorbia Obesa ‘Baseball Plant’; Adromischus Cooperi ‘Plover Eggs Plant’

Succulent Collection 2, L-R: Gasteria ‘Ox Tongue Plant’; Senecio Rowleyanus ‘String of Pearls’; Lithops ‘Living Stones’; Kalanchoe Luciae ‘Flapjack Plant’

While I didn’t know this at the time I began my succulent project, I learned through my research that while cacti are a type of succulent, cacti come from the Americas, but other succulents come from Africa. And, beyond that, it turns out that 7 of the 8 species I ended up making are actually native to South Africa – such a coincidence! I had no idea, although I do see succulents all over the place here; it makes sense to have water-retaining plants in a predominantly hot dry environment.

I’ve come up with all kinds of new crochet tricks and techniques for these patterns, and, as always, they are explained in fully illustrated detail in the patterns, so you can feel confident about tackling these even if you’ve only made very simple amigurumi before. As with the cacti, each Succulent Collection is available separately for $8, or you can get the second collection for almost half price when you buy both together for the ridiculously low price of $12.50.

Click through to see the super-sized version at Flickr 🙂
Back L-R: Cactus Collection 2, Cactus Collection 1
Front L-R: Succulent Collection 1, Succulent Collection 2

Just to make things even more exciting, as you can see from the picture above, I’ve made the Succulents on the same scale as my Cactus Collections 1 & 2, so now you can mix-and-match between all 4 plant collections to make a completely customized cactus/succulent garden, or a cute selection of mini pots with individual plants! (Or even a mini jungle like mine!)

Handy links to the patterns:
Succulent Collections 1 & 2
Succulent Collection 1
Succulent Collection 2
Cactus Collections 1 & 2
Cactus Collection 1
Cactus Collection 2

And, in a case of excellent timing, the PlanetJune February CAL will be a Plant-Along, so please join us at the PlanetJune Ravelry group if you’d like to participate in the crochet-along and make succulents and cacti (and any of my other plant patterns) with the rest of the group! The CAL officially starts on Feb 1st, but if you want to pick up the patterns now and get a head start, I won’t tell 😉

I’ve spent a huge amount of time making these succulent patterns into something special, so I really hope you’ll enjoy them! Please let me know what you think of them…

If you crochet, the humble yarn over (YO, or ‘yarn over hook’, YOH, in UK terminology) is a vital part of every single crochet stitch. But are you doing it correctly? There’s actually a right and a wrong way to wrap the yarn over your hook in crochet, and it’s such a basic move that you may have been doing it wrongly for years without realising!

Let’s look at the difference:

• With a normal crochet YO, you place the hook underneath the yarn strand and then hook the yarn from below.
• With a yarn under (YU), you put the hook over the yarn strand and then hook the yarn from above.

Here’s how they look, if you’re right-handed:

And if you’re left-handed:

I think the confusion may lie in the name yarn over. In crochet, you don’t really wrap the yarn over your hook at all: you use the hook to catch the yarn, so the phrase “yarn over (hook)” would be more accurately named “hook under (yarn)”…

I’ve put together a video to help clarify this – the first in my new Crochet Quickies series of short (around 1 minute) videos to explain very basic or brief crochet techniques. (I’ll still be making longer videos too, for techniques that would benefit from a little more explanation.)

Crochet Quickie: Yarn Over (right-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Crochet Quickie: Yarn Over (left-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them in full HD resolution 🙂

If you are crocheting – and this applies to all standard and Tunisian crochet stitches – passing the yarn over the hook is always the correct way to do a YO.

If you’re not sure which way you do it, grab some yarn and a hook. Pause when you’ve hooked a loop of yarn, just before you draw it up through the stitch, and see which way the yarn lies across your hook, using the photos or videos above for reference – you may discover you’ve been crocheting incorrectly! To try to tell if you’re doing it right in future, remember it’s called yarn over, so the yarn goes over the hook, i.e. the hook should pass under the yarn before you hook the yarn.

Exception

Now here’s the exception, and one I’ve experienced first-hand: this does not necessarily apply for knooking (knitting with a special crochet hook – see my review of The Knook for more information). With knooking, the way that you position the yarn across your hook varies depending on whether you’re knitting or purling. When I first tried knooking, I used a standard YO for all my stitches and they ended up twisted. Why this difference? Because knooking, despite using a crochet hook, is not crochet, it’s knitting with an unusual technique.

There may be other exceptions that require you to wrap the yarn in a different way, but the stitch instructions should always inform you if that’s the case. If all you see is “yarn over” or “YO”, the standard way is the correct way.

Does it really matter?

Yes and no! The difference is more visible with some crochet stitches than with others. For knooking and Tunisian knit stitch, it’s extremely important to use the intended YO/YU. For other crochet stitches, there is a difference in the finished appearance, but it may be much less obvious.

Simone from my Ravelry group worked up a test swatch in rows of sc, which shows a clear difference between the rows of YO and the rows of YU:

Rows of YO and YU (swatch and photo by Simone, used with permission)

You can see that there’s a definite slant/twist to the YU stitches compared with the YO stitches, and each YO stitch is more clearly defined – the YU stitches seem to blend more into a flatter finished surface. They both look attractive, but they are clearly not the same.

YU in amigurumi

I thought it’d be interesting to see what, if any, difference you’d see if you worked amigurumi (single crochet, worked in the round without turning) with YU, so I made two small amigurumi balls, worked identically except for the YOs or YUs throughout.

Almost immediately, I noticed something unexpected: a flat circle is actually flatter when worked in YU! Normally, the backs of all the stitches are larger than the fronts (because we aren’t turning the work between rounds), which makes a flat circle want to curl up slightly into a bowl shape, with the right side on the inside of the bowl. You can see that slight curling at the edge of my YO sample, but it’s missing from the YU sample! Very interesting…

Left: YO edges are curved up (the ‘v’s around the edge face upwards)
Right: YU edges are perfectly flat (the ‘v’s around the edge face outwards)

I found YO and YU equally easy to work, although of course I had to concentrate on every stitch with the YU sample to make sure I didn’t slip back into my usual automatic YO method. And now let’s look at the finished samples:

From the top (magic ring visible)

From the side (there are 2 rounds with no increases/decreases around the middle of each ball)

• YO has more obvious texture, whereas YU is flatter. The twisting of the YU stitches seems to actually fill the gaps between the stitches better and each stitch is less clearly defined.
• The twisting of the stitches is very subtle, but I can definitely see a diagonal slant visible within each YU stitch. The slant is more pronounced on the decreases – invisible decreases aren’t so invisible if you YU!
• My YU sample is noticeably smaller. Although this could be a tension issue because of the unfamiliar YU hand movements, it could also contribute to the smaller gaps between stitches.

If your amigurumi stitches don’t look like other people’s, and you’re definitely not working inside out, this could be the reason!

Conclusion

The difference between YO and YU if you’re making amigurumi is slight, but it is noticeable if you’re looking for it. The difference can be more apparent with crochet stitches other than single crochet.

If you’ve just discovered that you’ve always worked in YU, I don’t think you necessarily need to change if you’re happy with the way you’ve been working. There’s no law that says you have to crochet in the same way as everyone else. You’re free to crochet in a non-standard fashion (unless you’re teaching crochet, or creating patterns, tutorials, or crocheted samples for patterns/books) – if you like the finished result, that’s all that matters.

I can confirm (from trying it in reverse) that it’s not easy to make the change, and you’ll probably need at least a few hours of heavy concentration before the different hand movements become natural, or maybe longer if you’ve been crocheting for many years. I would advise that you at least try working a small piece in YO, to try it out, and see how it feels and how the finished piece looks – you may find that you prefer it.

Whichever method you choose, the most important thing is to be consistent, and not switch between the two methods. It’ll only look like you’ve made a mistake if you suddenly switch from one to the other within a piece, which will make some of your stitches look different from others. But if you’d like your stitches to look like everyone else’s, YO is the way to go!

Loved this tutorial? I have so many more amigurumi tips and tricks to share with you!

Boost your amigurumi skills with my latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, your comprehensive guide to amigurumi techniques and tips.

Do you find my tutorials helpful? If so, please consider making a contribution towards my time so I can continue to create clear and concise tutorials for you:

Thank you so much for your support! Now click below for loads more crochet video and photo tutorials (and do let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future tutorials…)

A couple of months ago, I put out a call in my Ravelry group for Christmas or Holiday design requests, and the most popular idea was for a square gift box, worked in the round. It’s easy enough to crochet a square base, but working the sides in one piece in the round means that the resulting box won’t look square – there are no corners, and, with every round, the square becomes more and more circular…

I decided to rise to the challenge and develop a circular box, worked in one piece in the round, that still looks square. I actually thought I’d already come up with the perfect technique, but, after testing it, I wasn’t happy with the result, so I went back to the drawing board. I created at least 10 cornering techniques and compared samples of each to find the ultimate corner, but I think it was worth the effort, because these boxes undeniably have real square corners:

I chose rich peacock hues for my boxes, with a lighter shade of each colour for the trim, but of course you can change the look by using traditional Christmas colours, or any other colours you like.

Each box has a removable lid, and they are sized so that, with the lids on, the three can nest neatly inside each other. The smallest is 2.5″ (6cm) wide and the largest is 4.5″ (11cm) wide.

You can also use them, with or without lids, as pretty little desk or bathroom organisers, or to display trinkets…

3 of the small boxes without lids

If you’d like to try out my special no-sew, worked-in-a-spiral, square corner technique, the Gift Boxes pattern includes full written instructions, and a bonus 3 page step-by-step photo tutorial at the end of the pattern. I laid it out like this so you’ll have plenty of photos to make sure you’ll definitely be able to understand how to make the corners, but you can save on ink by not printing the last 3 pages!

The Gift Boxes crochet pattern is now available in my shop, or you can bundle it with any other 2 PlanetJune Accessories patterns by picking up a custom set of any 3 Accessories patterns.

Note ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue!

I hope you like them!

I’ve created so many Christmas-related patterns and tutorials over the past 5 years, I thought it might be helpful to see them all together in one place.

Before I get into the roundup though, I’d like to ask a quick favour: I’ve been shortlisted for Inside Crochet magazine’s 2011 Blog awards and, if you enjoy my blog, I’d really appreciate your vote. It just takes a click to vote; no signup necessary. Vote here – thank you!

PlanetJune Christmas Crochet Patterns

My 2011 holiday pattern isn’t quite finished yet (thanks to a gardening accident to my finger which forced me to reschedule my tutorial photography session for the pattern), but I hope to publish it before the end of November, so you’ll still have plenty of time to make it before Christmas!

In the meantime, here are my other Christmas patterns from my regular ranges:

Top row: Christmas Trees, Christmas Baubles
Middle row: Poinsettia (donationware), PocketAmi Christmas
Bottom row: Christmas Pudding (donationware), Candy Cane (donationware)

And from PlanetJune Accessories:

Reindeer Antlers, Lip Balm Holder (donationware – and a perfect stocking stuffer!)

By the way, there’ll be another Christmas CAL for all my holiday patterns in the PlanetJune Ravelry group from December 1st, and I think I’ll throw in some prizes like last year. You’ll find crochet-along details on Ravelry from Dec 1st, and I’ll post with a link here too once it’s all set up 🙂

PlanetJune Christmas Craft Tutorials

Top: Punchneedle Embroidered Poinsettia, Polymer Clay Poinsettia
Bottom: Felt Poinsettia, Pom-Pom Christmas Tree

I think that’s it! I hope you’ll find a project (or a few) that you’d like to try for your Christmas crafting this year. And please, don’t forget to vote for me 🙂

Never lose your lip balm again (or have it melt in your pocket) with this stylish holder! Clip it to your keyring, to your bag, or even to your belt loop and you’ll always have lip balm at hand when you need it. Quick and easy to crochet, just pop a lip balm inside and you have a perfect little gift!

You’ve probably seen simple lip balm holder patterns before, but not like this one! Why?

• It’s worked in a fine yarn/thread with a small hook, so it looks subtle and elegant, not bulky and only appropriate for kids (although it’s great for kids too!)
• Don’t be put off by the tiny size: this pattern is designed to be easy on the hands! Only the base is worked in single crochet; the sides are worked into chain-spaces, so it’s much easier to insert your hook to begin each stitch.
• The sturdy hanging loop will keep your holder safe*.

*In case you’re wondering about that ‘sturdy hanging loop’ part, I know what I’m talking about! I first made myself lip balm holders from crochet thread in 2006. They lasted well, but I’d attached each to a metal ring by crocheting the ring to the top of the holder:

After prolonged use, the strands of thread attached to the ring frayed through, as you can see, so I determined to give my new design a sturdy loop so the thread isn’t stressed at any one point.

I tested this pattern using 4 different thicknesses of thread and yarn, so you can see how versatile it is. L-R: size 5 crochet thread, size 8 pearl cotton, size 10 crochet thread, fingering weight yarn (Bernat Baby).

It works up very quickly, and if you add a yummy flavoured lip balm inside, it’ll make a perfect stocking stuffer gift!

This is a donationware pattern, and I’ve changed things slightly this time by adding some additional info that you’ll only find in the PDF version (which you’ll receive as a thank you for your donation):

• A modification to make the holder slightly wider (in case you crochet tightly or have a non-standard-width lip balm tube)
• A simpler edging (in case you don’t get along with reverse single crochet)
• Tips for attaching the various types of hardware that you see in my photos

But, as always, the pattern is free for your use and donations are entirely optional 🙂

Enjoy!

Go to Lip Balm Holder pattern >>

Today I’d like to show you my favourite technique for making a decorative crocheted edging. Reverse single crochet (also known as crab stitch) makes a twisted cord edging, and it’s very easy to achieve – it’s no more than a single crochet stitch, but you work in the opposite direction to usual (left to right for right-handers; right to left for left-handers). Provided you don’t work too fast and tangle up your stitches (which is easy to do when you’re working backwards) it’s an easy technique to master.

As it’s easier to show than to tell, I’ve put together a new video to demonstrate. I hope you’ll find it useful, if you haven’t already mastered this stitch.

(If you want to practice the technique, it’ll be featured in both of my next two patterns, and you’ll get a peek at one of them in the video – another new donationware pattern to be released later this week!)

Reverse Single Crochet (right-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Reverse Single Crochet (left-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them in full HD resolution 🙂

I’ve been compiling a list of crochet technique videos that I plan to create over the coming months. If you have any suggestions you’d like me to add to my list, please let me know.

If you enjoy my crochet tutorial videos, please help to spread the word about them, and/or subscribe to the PlanetJune YouTube channel.

Loved this tutorial? I have so many more amigurumi tips and tricks to share with you!

Boost your amigurumi skills with my latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, your comprehensive guide to amigurumi techniques and tips.

Do you find my tutorials helpful? If so, please consider making a contribution towards my time so I can continue to create clear and concise tutorials for you:

Thank you so much for your support! Now click below for loads more crochet video and photo tutorials (and do let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future tutorials…)

Update: The Scarf Sweater instructions, together with my Eyelet Ripple stitch pattern, are now available as a printable Donationware pattern. They are still available for free, but if you like them please consider sending me a donation to show your appreciation:

Send me a donation and receive the easy-to-print PDF version of the instructions and stitch pattern (with bonus assembly photos and instructions on how to wear it) as a thank you!

Donations of any size are much appreciated. Just add the amount you wish to donate, and, once you have checked out and paid, your pattern will instantly be available to download from your PlanetJune account.

The complete pattern and instructions are available below, regardless of whether or not you choose to pay for them 🙂

This is a PlanetJune original crochet pattern. Feel free to use items made from this pattern however you wish, but I’d appreciate credit as the pattern designer. Please do not reproduce the pattern anywhere else; instead post a link to www.planetjune.com/scarfsweater

Not ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue:

***

Wow, I really didn’t expect such a great response to my Scarf Sweater – I linked it up on Ravelry and over 60 people have queued it already! Of course, you can use any stitch pattern to make a scarf sweater, but I’ve been getting questions about the eyelet ripple stitch pattern I used, so I thought I’d share some info about ripples and the pattern for my eyelet ripple.

Ripple Basics

Ripple (aka chevron) patterns in crochet take 2 basic forms:

• Solid Ripple: the peaks and valleys are formed by increases and decreases, giving a solid fabric with no holes
• Eyelet Ripple: the peaks and valleys are formed by chains and skipped stitches, leaving a hole (an eyelet) at the point of each direction change

Note: these are my names for them; other people may call them by other names or not distinguish between the two types at all!

All ripples are formed by a section of straight stitches, a peak to change direction, another section of straight stitches, and then a valley to change direction again. This forms a zig-zag pattern. The number of stitches in the straight sections determines the width of the ripple, and the number of increases/decreases or chains/skipped stitches determines the angle of the ripple.

June’s Eyelet Ripple Pattern

You can use this pattern to make a scarf, a blanket, or a scarf sweater like mine! This is a generic pattern, so you can make it any width you like. N is the number of repeats, not including the half repeat at each edge. So in the stitch diagram below, N=1 and the ripple has 2 complete zig-zags. (For my Scarf Sweater, I used N=3, so I had 4 zig-zags.)

Terminology

Pattern

Ch 12xN + 15.

Row 1: dc in 4th ch from hook (unworked chains count as dc), dc in next 4 ch, skip next 2 ch, (dc in next 5 ch, ch 2, dc in next 5 ch, skip next 2 ch) N times, dc in next 4 ch, 2 dc in last ch.

Row 2: ch 3 (counts as dc), dc in same st, dc in next 4 st, skip next 2 st, (dc in next 4 st, [dc, ch 2, dc] in next ch2-sp, dc in next 4 st, skip next 2 st) N times, dc in next 4 st, 2 dc in last st.

Repeat Row 2 until your piece is as long as you want.

Stitch Diagram

Scarf Sweater Joining

If you’re making this into a scarf sweater, when you come to seam the two short ends together, you won’t be stitching two straight lines; you’ll be matching up the zig-zag shapes at the ends of the scarf, as shown below. If you stitch neatly, the zig-zag disguises the seam very nicely – I tried to find my seam so I could take a photo of it for you, and I can’t actually find it!

When you join the two layers across the back, do take a moment to make sure you continue the zig-zag pattern across both layers, to make the seam less visible. You won’t get the eyelets along the seam, but at least the zig-zags can flow down across both layers.

I hope you enjoy this pattern. Please leave me a comment below if you do, and consider leaving me a donation. Thanks!

More PlanetJune Accessories patterns

If you’ve enjoyed this post, you might also like my PlanetJune Accessories crochet patterns: they all include stitch diagrams and clear written explanations so you can easily crochet elegant wearable accessories for yourself and to give as beautiful gifts. Here’s a taster of the range:

We’re also having a PlanetJune Accessory CAL on Ravelry throughout November, and you’re very welcome to join in!