Hello crafty friends!
Whereas you’re a beginner or a confirmed crochet addict, finding the right pattern can really make the difference. The problem is, there is so much out there that it can be hard to find the perfect pattern to fulfil your crochet dreams! In today’s blog post, I want to share my favourite places to look for patterns, and the pros and cons of each platform. As a fun little bonus, I also thought I would share my experience as a designer selling on each of these platforms. And, because I’m a huge amigurumi fan, I’ll also share the link to my Pinterest profile at the end of this post, where I’ve organised all my favourite paid and free amigurumi patterns with direct links to the patterns guaranteed!
1. Ravelry
If you’re an English speaking crocheter, Ravelry is a pretty sweet website! This was the first crochet database I used when I started crocheting, and one of its huge advantages in my opinion is the number of patterns available on the platform. I also quite like that you can keep track of projects and link patterns that are not in Ravelry to your project page. From a designer perspective, I also really like that you don’t have any upfront costs when posting a pattern, which means that Ravelry is a great site for free patterns! You can also keep all your patterns in your library and they do get updated if the designer adds to or modifies the file. There are also a couple of cool social add ons, you can become friends with people, set up and participate in forums, and review all the patterns and yarns.
Unfortunately there are also a couple of negatives about the platform. The first thing is that you need an account to save patterns in your library. But you can still download pdf without an account so that’s not too bad. I personally also find Ravelry a bit hard to use from a mobile phone, although it has gotten a lot better in the last couple of years. There is currently no app for it. I also find the search function a little hard to use, you really need to know what you’re looking for, and sometimes you’re better off looking for a designer (if you can remember their name!) than a pattern.
Overall, I really like Ravelry and I often use it to look for and save patterns! I probably don’t use it to its full potential (I am terrible at updating my projects!) but I’m okay with that. As a designer, I have most of my amigurumi patterns available on my Ravelry shop, even if the visibility isn’t great (there are just so many patterns!), at least it’s free to post them there!
2. Etsy
Etsy is hands down the most popular website to find paid crochet patterns. In fact, this is where I make the most of my pattern sales. Most designers have their patterns on Etsy because the platform actually does a decent job at showing listings to potential clients. That means that Etsy has a lot of patterns and it’s generally quite good at suggesting ones you might like based on your previous searches/favourites. You can also generally download pdf files straight away, which is nice, but just like with ravelry, you’re better off having an account to access your patterns again (in case you loose them). If you have an account and favourite patterns, some shops might offer you a discount so that’s something to keep in mind too.
There are a couple of negatives again with this platform. The biggest one is that you can’t have free patterns on Etsy. Etsy charges its sellers upfront for putting up a listing, and there are also quite a few fees that come with selling on Etsy so a lot of people put their prices slightly up on Etsy. For this reason, I would generally recommend checking out if the pattern you found on Etsy is available elsewhere, as it might be cheaper for you and the designer might also end up with a bit more in their pockets if you go directly through them. Some sellers might also restrict which countries they sell to, so you might have issues buying a pattern depending on where you and the designer are from. Etsy is also a selling platform only, so there aren’t many social interactions there, which might be a positive or a negative depending on what you’re looking for.
Overall, Etsy is a very good platform for finding and buying paid patterns, but it might be worth doing a bit more digging and going straight through the designer’s website to get patterns, as you can generally get a discount. If you’re looking to share projects and chat with other crafters though, Etsy is not for you!
3. Ribblr
I just got started on Ribblr and I can totally see its potential. It has clearly been designed by crafts addicts and for craft addicts! There are a few things that I really love about the platform. You can set up your preferred crafts and Ribblr will recommend patterns to you (which is pretty awesome). I also really like that all the patterns are in the same format on the platform, it would make it a lot easier to follow patterns as a beginner. Ribblr is also clearly trying to up their game (which is so good to see) and they have a bunch of cool giveaways and sales every week. There is also a community built into Ribblr, and you are prompted to share feedback and reviews with fellow crafters. As a huge bonus, Ribblr has a mobile app that’s super user friendly.
As a designer, Ribblr also has so many awesome tools to help you sell patterns, you receive a newsletter with very good advice every week or so, and you get a monthly review on how your patterns performed. They also feature designers quite often so it might be a good way to get extra visibility. It’s also free to add patterns to the site and you only pay a commission when you make a sale. This means that Ribblr has a great potential for finding patterns (both paid and free).
Sadly, at this stage, Ribblr is still too new to have many patterns on its platform. But I am very confident that in the next few years it will get a lot more new patterns. A small negative for designers is that you need to copy paste your patterns into the pattern builder on Ribblr, so it’s a little bit more effort to list your patterns but I think it will be worth it in the long term and I’m excited to get all my patterns listed there.
4. Instagram
Instagram is not a platform that people necessarily think of when they are looking for crochet patterns but it can be really good, especially to find free patterns! If you do not already, I would highly recommend following your favourite pattern designers on Instagram as there are often giveaways being held and designers can also post discount codes on Instagram. More recently, it’s also become super popular to post small free patterns in Instagram posts or on Instagram stories. There are also events happening quite often with free patterns available for download for a limited time (this is mostly for smaller crochet patterns like amigurumi).
The negative with Instagram is that it can get a bit overwhelming, especially with some of the events I mentioned earlier. Some of those are really straight forward (you just download the free pattern) but other make you jump through hoops for a free pattern that you might not even really like, that you might not enjoy making (who has the time to make a set part of the pattern in 3 days during the week if you have kids and work?!) and that you won’t get as a pdf. It can also be hard to know where to look, but a couple of good hashtags to look through are #freepattern, #crochetpattern and #patternrelease.
5. Lovecrafts
Lovecrafts is another of my favourite sites to look for patterns. I really like that you have a personalised dashboard with your saved/bought patterns and looking for patterns is really easy. One of the biggest bonuses to Lovecrafts is that the website suggests yarn for the patterns you have selected, which is so useful. Lovecrafts also collaborate with well known designers to release free patterns quite often so it’s a great place to look for freebies.
As a designer, it’s pretty simple to upload patterns onto Lovecrafts’ platform but you need to make sure to include enough details in your patterns because they are checked before being published. This is good because it ensures a certain quality of patterns on Lovecrafts (so you know you get the best possible patterns!). It’s also free to post patterns on Lovecrafts and you pay a commission when you sell a pattern.
A negative to the platform is that they are trying to push patterns that recommend yarn they stock (which makes sense). So you need to keep this in mind when looking for patterns.
6. (Bonus) Pinterest
Pinterest is an interesting one. It’s actually a really good image search engine and it’s great because you can theoretically sort all the patterns you find there by adding them to your boards. There is also a very cool feature in Pinterest that shows you the price of items, including patterns. Honestly, Pinterest would be my favourite platform to look for crochet patterns (let’s face it, it’s awesome that you can see all the images and compare them straight away) if it didn’t have one massive issue. Almost every time I click on a pin, it brings me to a third party website that has soooo many ads and no patterns, and I get so frustrated by it! This is why I’ve decided to create my own business Pinterest account for EmmaCraftsDesign. I only pin pictures that lead straight to patterns. I have a couple of duplicates because I pin from different platforms (for example the same pattern but from ravelry and Etsy), but I can guarantee that all the pins on my pattern boards lead to real patterns and not to blog roundups that may never even share the actual links to the patterns! If you want to check my boards out, you can find my Pinterest profile by clicking the button below and going into the ‘saved’ tab (I do add pins quite regularly to my boards, especially the free patterns one, so keep an eye out for those!).
I hope you’ve enjoyed this list and that hopefully you’ve learnt about a couple new ways to look for crochet patterns! Do you have a favourite website/method to look for crochet patterns that I haven’t talked about? Let me know in the comments, I love to hear from you!
The opinions I share in this post about each website are my own. I am subscribed on each of those platforms and I am writing here about my personal experience looking for patterns and selling patterns on each of those websites.