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

Note: I’m assuming the most common scenario: you’re selling in USD through Etsy, using PayPal to accept payment, but the general principles apply however you’re selling, although the exact fees and percentages will vary.

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 3.5% (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
$0.70 to Etsy when it sells (3.5% 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 $1.78 that you’ve lost by selling the same online vs a cash in-person sale. So you should consider charging $22 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 + 0.064 x (in-person sale price)

Notes: If you regularly sell to overseas customers, use 0.074 instead of 0.064 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.

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 PayPal will take 2.9% of the price you’re paid for the shipping costs (e.g. that works out as 15c if you charge $5 for shipping), so, once you’ve worked out the cost of postage plus all your packing and shipping materials, you need to add the PayPal commission like this:

Shipping charge = 1.03 x (postage cost plus packaging materials cost)

Note: if you offer shipping to overseas customers, use 1.04 instead of 1.03 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 hoped all my hard work designing these would pay off, but I didn’t expect them to outsell half my existing pattern catalogue within a week…

It’s Groundhog Day!

“He comes out. He looks around. He wrinkles up his little nose. He sees his shadow…”

…and that means we’re in for, what, 6 more weeks of baking hot summer? As (probably) the only groundhog in Africa, my little buddy is justifiably confused! (Note: that scrubby patch he’s sitting on is all that remains of my lawn…)

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! I’m hoping we’ll have time to watch the movie tonight…

Review and Win contest

January’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Linda U, with her Emperor Penguin Family review:

These patterns are a perfect combination, not only as a beautiful penguin family, but also for practicing colour changes. I recommend you start with the baby penguin, since it is only 2 colours to work with, then continue with the adult.

Congrats Linda – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize

To be entered into this month’s draw for a free pattern of your choice, just write a review of any product in my shop – thank you!

February CALs

Get all lovey-dovey with crocheted hearts and flowers in the Valentine’s Crochet-Along, with my free (donationware) heart and rose patterns:

And/or come and work on your succulent garden together with everyone else and join the Plant-Along! We worked out that between the 8 cactus and 8 succulent patterns, there are 1820 possible combinations of “4 different plants in 1 pot” – I wonder how many of those we’ll see in the CAL?

I hope you’ll join us…

(For speed, I’m just giving credit with participants’ Ravelry usernames.) Here’s what happened in the January CAL!

My Sea Turtle pattern is a big time commitment, with 26 separate pieces that make up the turtle, so I’m especially pleased to see how many people tackled it this month. It was really fun to see people’s photos of their piles of pre-assembled pieces, and seeing the lovely colours everyone chose:

PixyKayte & CrochetChrisie

camaharet & klopferli

AKmtnnymph & SunnyStrings (who made a car seat blanket to match her turtle)

theMarkofSMB & arbitrarily (whose turtle was made with a 1.25mm hook and is only 8cm long!)

I have to give a special mention to Monica (theMarkofSMB) who, after making her sea turtle above, managed to put together another five sea turtles, in assorted colours:

all 5 by theMarkofSMB – an amazing achievement!

And then we have my Adult and Baby Emperor Penguin patterns:

CrochetChrisie & Fatals-attraction

Enphra & CranberryAmi

rastakt & Fatals-attraction (who made Valentine’s penguins in 2 shades of pink!)

All the non-tiny aquatic mammals:

adult and baby Beluga Whales, and Dolphin, both by petrOlly

Sea Lion and a clever mod of my Dolphin into a shark, both by petrOlly

CrochetChrisie made sweet adult and baby pairs of both my Polar Bear and Sea Lion patterns, by changing the yarn thickness and hook size

And the only person brave enough to attempt a ‘fuzzy’ pattern this time around was jukatca, with her cute Fuzzy Seal!

And finally, Tiny Whale was very popular this month, as nobody can possibly be too busy to find the time to make this little no-sew pattern. But we didn’t just see plain Tiny Whales: we have colourful whales, catnip-stuffed whales (cat toys), keychain whales, sets of counting whales (for kids), baby toy whales on rings, giant mega-whales, teeny-tiny miniature whales, and even whales modified into Humpbacks and Orcas! This is such a great example of how you can use your creativity to take a pattern, even one as simple as Tiny Whale, and make it your own:

PixyKayte & yasminlangley

both by CranberryAmi

knitwhy & kathykoo

sunshine1127 & yaney

CrochetChrisie & theMarkofSMB

both by petrOlly

CrochtColorJunkie

Fatals-attraction

theMarkofSMB

both by theMarkofSMB

theMarkofSMB and AKmtnnymph

the first 4 of 10 counting whales by saudistitcher

Another amazing roundup! Well done to everyone – they all look great (If you’d like to make any of the patterns featured in this CAL, you’ll find them all under Aquatic Animals in my shop.)

If you missed out on the CAL fun, we have two CALs starting on February 1st (tomorrow!):

Firstly, a Valentine’s CAL (using my free Love Hearts and Basic Rose patterns) from Feb 1-14th…

And secondly, a Plant-Along, which includes all my plant and flower patterns (including the new succulents!) from Feb 1-29th.

We’d love it if you’d join in with one or both at the PlanetJune Ravelry group!

Maui also likes to supervise when I’m designing – here he makes sure that my yarn ball doesn’t get away from me while I crochet succulents…

The balls I crocheted for my Yarn Over vs Yarn Under comparison had a dual purpose – I added some catnip as I stuffed them, so they could double up as new toys for Maui.

Maui won’t care if I crocheted these with YO or YU, as long as there’s catnip inside!

But that wasn’t good enough – he already has crocheted balls to play with, and I wanted to give him a really special treat. So I put on my creative thinking cap and the result was pretty amazing – I think I may have created the best cat toy ever! It turned my 8-years-young lazypuss into a kitten again, and held his attention for far longer than any store-bought toy has.

If you have, or know, a cat, and you like to craft, you must try this. It’s really easy, it only takes 5 minutes, you’ll have a valid excuse for eating chocolates while you craft, and you’ll have the happiest cat in the neighbourhood! The foil makes an irresistible crinkly noise when the ball is played with.

The ball on the right has been thoroughly quality-tested by Maui, and after half an hour of kitty football, stalking, pouncing and batting, being carried by mouth, dropped into shoes and being fished out again, you can see that it hasn’t fallen apart at all!

Note: this is my first donationware craft tutorial. As I’ve had requests for PDFs of other tutorials, I’ll also be converting some of my older tutorials to donationware, as I find the time, so there’ll be a handy printable option for them too. As always with my donationware, the full tutorial is available online for free, whether or not you choose to pay for the PDF version!

Go to the Crinkle Ball Cat Toy tutorial >>

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…

Here’s a little sampling of what Judy has made with my patterns… impressive, huh? How many do you recognise?! Read Judy’s story, and then I’ll show more of her photos at the end of the post!

Judy writes:

The first PlanetJune pattern that I ever used was her Basic Rose pattern. I crocheted a cake and wanted some roses for decoration and they were perfect!

Then I did a PlanetJune crochet-along project or two, but what really got me hooked on her patterns were her Cactus Collections: they are SO real looking and awesome! After that I have been NUTS for June’s patterns and now have almost all of them and have completed the majority of the patterns I own.

In addition to having really great patterns with easy to follow instructions and new techniques that result in nice crisp finished products with clean lines and incredible cuteness, she allows people to sell finished items as long as they credit her as the designer. Knowing this, in January 2011, I opened my Etsy shop, Judy’s Ami Shop.

Currently, everything I have in stock is made from PlanetJune patterns. I am having so much fun with my shop! I love getting orders, boxing them up, and taking them to the post office. I have had a husband order a Chinchilla for an anniversary gift for his wife, an Alpaca ordered for a wedding gift, and recently I got an order for a Guinea Pig to be a companion to a real Guinea Pig whose brother died. (My customer reports that her Guinea Pig likes his new crocheted buddy!) The furthest away that I’ve gotten an order is from Japan – where my fuzzy Red Fox now lives.

All the money I have made from my store has gone into buying new PlanetJune patterns, yarn, and supplies. I can only expect that my Etsy shop will continue to grow! But I don’t put everything I crochet up for sale; some go to friends and family for gifts. And sometimes I am tempted to close my shop, surround myself with all of the amis and say, “mine all mine!”, as I laugh maniacally! After crocheting the Aardvark pattern, I decided that this Aardvark was my Aardvark – I love him so. I look forward to seeing June’s pattern store continue to grow and see what she comes up with next!

I hope most of my customers realise by now that you, like Judy, are allowed to sell as many items as you want, made from my patterns, provided you credit me as the designer and don’t share the patterns themselves!

(I’ll blog in more detail about this later, but if you have an online shop where you sell items you’ve made from my patterns, you might like to add your shop details to my list of PlanetJune-designed toy sellers. I refer anyone who enquires about finished items to this list, so it’s a great way to get a little free promotion for your shop!)

And now let’s look at a few more of Judy’s crocheted creations:

Cactus Collection

Poison Dart Frog; Lion and Lioness

Thank you so much, Judy, for sharing your story and lovely photos with us! Please leave Judy a comment if you’ve enjoyed this post, or visit Judy’s Ami Shop if you’d like to buy one of her lovely (and familiar-looking!) creations.

Do you have a PlanetJune Story you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it! Please email your story to june@planetjune.com, together with one or more high quality photos showing what you’ve made from PlanetJune patterns. If I choose your story to feature here on the blog, I’ll send you your choice of pattern from my shop to say thank you!

My biggest problem right now is deciding which photos to show you this month – between our adventures over Christmas and adding a birdbath and a new bird feeder to our garden, I have enough wildlife pics for at least three posts! But I’ve decided that this month I want to talk about the lizards in my garden. (Please don’t be squeamish; these little guys are totally harmless, and they’re really helpful to have around because they eat bugs and stop my garden from being overrun with insects.)

It’s hard to believe there’s such a variety of wildlife in one small back garden – I’ve found three completely different types of lizard, and and they are all very small (5″ long or less) and non-threatening. I love having them around – it’s fascinating to be able to watch them.

PS – keep reading to the end; I’ve saved the best for last!

Geckos

There are lots of little geckos in the garden, although we usually only see them when we move something they were sitting behind or inside, and then they run like lightning to escape to safety! That makes them very difficult to photograph; these are the best photos I’ve managed so far.

As you can see from the pics above and below, their colouration is quite varied, so I’m not sure if they’re all Marbled Leaf-Toed Geckos, or if we actually have a second species too.

Skinks

Our Cape Skinks are a little more scary looking – they have long smooth snakelike bodies and flicky tongues. It’s only when you spot their tiny legs that you know you’re not looking at a snake! They also move lightning fast, but if you sit still for a while they get braver and come out to sunbathe or look for insects. Of course, they only do that when I don’t have my camera handy, so even in my best photos, they are half-hidden in foliage…

A Cape Skink – or is it a snake?!

No, it’s definitely a lizard – you can see the leg more clearly here.

Chameleons

You can’t imagine my excitement when I looked at our wild peach tree one day and saw a bright green Cape Dwarf Chameleon looking back at me! Completely different from the other lizards, the chameleon’s camouflage involves moving veeeeeery slooooowly and swaying, so their motion looks like a leaf blowing in the wind. And it works! It’s very hard to spot, even when you know it’s there, but once you do, it’s great for taking photos. Just look at these:

How amazing is this?! Look at his two-toed feet.

Colour changing from bright green to blackish green (yep, it’s the same chameleon in both pics!)

Tongue shooting out to catch food – his tongue is as long as his whole body, with a suction cup on the end…

Perfect accuracy with the tongue grab – tasty insect acquired.

This pic just made me laugh – I feel like he’s about to reach for his top hat and cane and break into ‘Hello, My Baby‘

I still can’t really believe I took these photos in my own garden – it’s like having my own private zoo! I think it’s partly because we have an older house (1920s) so the garden and our big tree are very established, and there are lots of wildlife habitats. And it’s partly because I go outside most days and actually look for wildlife in the garden – I bet that, if you have a garden, there’s more interesting wildlife in it than you realise! (Although you probably won’t find anything as cool as a chameleon, sorry…)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s photos! Please leave me a comment if you did – I’ll stop posting if/when you get bored with seeing my pics, so I’d really like to know that you’re still interested.

***

In case these pics have inspired you to crochet a lizard of your own, my Gecko pattern might be just what you’re looking for. And I’m pretty sure there’ll be a PlanetJune Chameleon coming at some point in the future!

Here’s the thing: PayPal offers a very nice Seller Protection package that covers sellers in the event of disputes or chargebacks. But, this Seller Protection only extends to sellers of tangible goods (i.e. items that can be shipped). PayPal’s user agreement specifies that items/transactions not eligible for PayPal Seller protection, include “Intangible items, including Digital Goods, and services.” So if you sell PDF files, eBooks, mp3 files, etc, there’s no Seller Protection for you.

Rules that govern the sale and refund of physical items cannot apply to digital items: there’s no way to ‘return’ a digital item in exchange for a refund. For that reason, most digital sellers state that all sales are final.

However, sometimes a buyer files a claim with PayPal that the item was not what was expected, usually because they didn’t read the item title or description, just looked at the picture and assumed they were buying a ridiculously inexpensive handcrafted item (with no shipping charges!) instead of a PDF file containing the instructions to make the item themselves…

In these cases, PayPal seems to invariably side with the buyer (in the case of everyone I’ve spoken to about it, at least). They remove the money from the seller’s account and refund it to the buyer, thus making a mockery of the seller’s ‘no refunds/all sales are final’ policy. In this situation, the seller has no comeback: the buyer has the pattern and their money back; the seller is left with nothing but bitterness. Has this happened to you? Please share your story in the comments! I’d love to know how prevalent this really is.

In early December, one of my Etsy customers neglected to read the title or description and asked for a refund after receiving the pattern. I referred the customer to my ‘final sale’ policy but they wouldn’t accept that and launched a “significantly not as described” dispute against me. It’s taken over a month for PayPal to resolve the case, during which time they withdrew the funds from my account, but today, they found in my favour and returned my money to me!

If you’re a digital seller, you may find yourself in the same situation, so here’s my advice:

1. Gather your evidence

Why is the buyer’s claim flawed? Make a list of facts (and figures, if possible) that support your side of the story.

Here’s mine. I ignored my main shop when gathering my figures, as this dispute was over an item in my Etsy shop, so adding sales numbers from my own shop would be misleading. In my Etsy shop (at the time of responding to the dispute):

• I only sell crochet patterns
• 2919 crochet patterns already sold
• 88 other copies of the same item already sold (all 88 using the same photos and description) with no other misunderstandings
• 100% positive feedback
• I state “CROCHET PATTERNS” (in capitals) in the item title and mention throughout the description that it’s a pattern that will be emailed as a PDF file
• My Etsy seller policies clearly state that I sell crochet patterns, not finished items, and that all sales are final
• The seller confirmation email from Etsy also states that the pattern will be emailed, giving the buyer the chance to contact me prior to my sending the patterns if they had made a mistake

Pretty solid evidence, I think, that “significantly not as described” was not something that can apply here!

2. Present your evidence

The key here is to be professional. Imagine you’re presenting evidence in a court case – the most compelling response is an objective account of the facts you’ve gathered.

You only get one chance to respond to PayPal, so make it count. Don’t hit ‘respond’ and begin typing directly within PayPal; compose your response in your text editor of choice, and save it. Then step away from the computer, do something else, and let yourself cool down.

When you look over it again, edit out any emotional phrases and any waffly bits, so it’s concise and to the point. Make sure you’ve included all the evidence that could count in your favour, and end with a short, clear conclusion. Read it over again, and only then paste it into the PayPal response box and submit it.

3. Wait…

It took over a month for the case to be resolved. During that time, I heard nothing more from PayPal, and I assumed the worst. Then, yesterday, I got the email:

We have concluded our investigation and have decided in your favor. The listing accurately described the item the buyer received. Any funds that may have been temporarily held have been returned to your account.

Victory! I don’t know if this is the start of a change of policy by PayPal, or my evidence was just too compelling for them to ignore, but please feel free to use my case as precedent if the same thing happens to you: PayPal case number PP-001-585-575-355 (or just share the link to this post).

Digital sellers are not a small minority group any more. Digital sales is a massive and fast-growing sector, as books and CDs are replaced by ebooks and mp3 downloads, and self-publishing becomes ever-more prevalent. PayPal would do well to look after their digital sellers; we’re making them a lot of money in commissions.

I hope that my victory this week is a sign of better things to come…

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)

Crochet Quickie: Yarn Over (left-handed)

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!

Review and Win contest

December’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Rianne d, with her Gift Boxes review:

I’m really happy with this pattern, it does exactly what the description says; it’s like magic how the box really stays square instead of rounding up like most one-piece in-the-round cubes! The instructions are easy to follow and all the special stitches are explained really well with a nice photo tutorial, I had no trouble at all with making the corners. And the end result looks pretty, of course.

Congrats Rianne – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize

To be entered into this month’s draw for a free pattern of your choice, just write a review of any product in my shop – thank you!

January CAL

The AquaAmi Crochet-Along is in full swing – come and join in at the PlanetJune Ravelry group! I have loads of patterns for you to choose from:

Other News

After my month-long designing hiatus I feel newly inspired. I’m midway through an exciting, ambitious design to be released later this month, if all goes to plan. It’s great to get back to crocheting after such a long (although much needed) break, and I’m looking forward to having new designs and tutorials to share with you soon! Watch this space…