Frequently Asked Questions
About orders
How do I order?
You can add patterns to your shopping cart with the ‘add to cart’ button. After that, you can visit your shopping cart by clicking on the shopping cart symbol in the top right corner. In your cart you can click ‘check out’, which will take you to a page to verify your personal information and your payment.
What payment methods do you have?
You can view all symbols for all payment methods that we have available at the bottom of the website and in your cart. You can pay with credit card (Visa, Maestro, Mastercard, American Express), through PayPal, or use a more localized method such as iDeal (Netherlands), Bancontact (Belgium) and others.
How do I receive the patterns?
After your payment is completed, you will automatically receive an email within a few minutes with your individual download links. Within this email you can download the patterns in PDF format to your personal computer, phone or tablet.
How do I open the patterns?
The patterns are in PDF format. To open a PDF, you will need a program or app that can open PDF files. Most modern computers, phones and tablets have such a program installed. If this isn’t the case, you will have to download and install a PDF reader.
How do I print the patterns?
Once you open your PDF pattern in a PDF reader program or app, and you have a printer connected, you can click the printer button in your PDF reader program or app to print the patterns in A4-format.
I bought the patterns long ago, but lost the documents. Can you resend them?
Yes, we can! Just send us a message with your order information at our contact page here. Please tell us what email address or name you used to purchase them, so we can find your order quickly.
How do I cancel my order?
If you have not downloaded the patterns yet, we might be able to give you a refund. Please send us a message with your order information at our contact page here.
I thought I was buying physical toys, what do I do now?
If you have not downloaded the patterns yet, we might be able to give you a refund. Please send us a message with your order information at our contact page here.
Can I resell the patterns?
No! Our patterns are copyrighted. You are not allowed to sell, copy or publish them without our written permission.
Can I publish the patterns or parts of them?
No! Our patterns are copyrighted. You are not allowed to copy,
publish or spread them without our written permission.
About items
Can I sell the toys I make from the patterns?
You may sell the physical items you have made with our patterns. Our conditions are:
- Please give credits for the pattern
- Don’t be a mass producer
If you’re a small business, hobby crocheter, individual seller, or anything along those lines, then you can go ahead and sell. It makes us especially happy when we can indirectly help people with their shops, charities or events in that way!
Do you sell physical items?
No, we only sell digital crochet amigurumi patterns in PDF format.
Can you refer me to someone who sells the physical items made from your patterns?
No, we are not familiar with individual crocheters who sell physical items made with our patterns on demand. We recommend looking for someone in your area or someone on social media yourself (for example by browsing the hashtag #littlebearcrochets), or to commission a crocheter you know.
Can I order the materials to make the patterns from your shop?
No, we only sell digital crochet amigurumi patterns in PDF format. If you want to know what materials we personally use, you can find a blog post about that here.
In what language are your patterns?
Currently all of our paid patterns and some of our free patterns are available in English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese and we’re constantly working on adding more languages. You don’t have to pick which language you’d like. After purchase you automatically receive the patterns in all available languages.
Can I purchase all the patterns in a (physical) book?
No, we only sell our patterns as digital files in PDF format. However, we offer bundles with big discounts if you’d like to purchase patterns from a particular series all in one go. You can find them here.
Do you also have a pattern of a different animal that’s not visible in your shop?
No. Every pattern that we offer is visible in our shop or on our blog. If a pattern hasn’t appeared there, we currently don’t have it. If you’d like to be up to date about new pattern releases in the future, you can sign up for our newsletter.
Can I request a certain pattern / ask for a custom order / hire you to make a pattern from a drawing?
No. We currently only transform our own designs into patterns and we do not sell the rights to these patterns. You can’t hire us to do individual designing or custom crocheting work for you. This simply isn’t financially achievable for us, unless you are willing to pay us full-time wages for a couple of weeks, with possibly additional costs of purchasing the rights to publish and use the pattern you have requested.
I saw your patterns being sold in someone else’s account / shop / webpage, is that right?
No, most likely it’s piracy. Please report it at our contact page here or send us a direct message on one of our social media accounts, so we can research it and act on it. Thank you in advance!
About crochet
How do I crochet?
Crochet is an easy, but very visual skill. Watching videos, inspecting images and visiting a crochet class are your best options for learning. We recommend looking up a local class to learn how to crochet, or looking up tutorials on video websites such as Youtube. You can do it!
How do I start with amigurumi?
To make amigurumis, it’s important to know a few basic crochet stitches and to be able to work with patterns. We have written a blog post about this that you can find here.
What is a magic circle? What are a sc, inc, dec or ss?
These are abbreviations for types of crochet stitches that are often used in amigurumi patterns. You can read more about these stitches and techniques in one of our blog posts here.
How do I embroider on my amigurumis?
We have written a tutorial for embroidery, which you can find here.
What yarn should I use?
That’s totally up to you! Each pattern contains a recommended yarn, but you can use whatever yarn you prefer and is within your possibility to purchase. If you want to know what materials we personally use, you can find a blog post about that here.
What yarn did you use?
You can find the yarn used for every pattern on the first page of the pattern and in the product description of the product page of the individual pattern. Can’t find it or it’s missing? You can send us a question about it at our contact page here.
About being a pattern designer
Why are your prices the way they are?
When we design, create and publish a pattern we have to consider the following efforts and costs that go into them:
- Expertise. Building up all skills needed to design patterns and to make and publish them. This can take many years and is a very unique specialization.
- Time. Designing a toy, designing the pattern, making step by step pictures, creating the PDF file, making product pictures, running a website, running an online shop, publishing the files in the shop, marketing them, offering digital support to customers of the pattern, writing a blog post, etc. This way, every pattern can take anywhere from weeks to months to create and thus takes considerable amount of time and work to end up in our shop.
- Materials. Publishing patterns takes a lot of materials. Trying to design takes a lot of yarn, stuffing, safety eyes, threads, etc. Making the pictures takes good camera equipment. Making the PDF takes a good computer and designing programs. Having a good online presence with a shop takes speedy, good quality internet.
- Taxes. We pay all required taxes. The price of our patterns includes VAT and we pay income taxes.
- Additional costs. Everything costs money, selling patterns too. Running a website with a shop and a blog means paying for a server, for hosting, for digital items such as a logo and a website theme, for electricity, etc. Selling patterns means transaction costs. Services that we use such as Paypal, Shopify, etc. all take a percentage of the sale too.
When you see the price of a pattern, you don’t just see the profit someone will make. What you see is the true representation of all costs and efforts mentioned above. Only a percentage of the price is profit for the designer.
Little Bear Crochets consists of two people. We create and publish our own patterns and we do this as our full-time job. We have put thousands of hours into our work, and although it is a labor of love, we need a wage to keep a roof above our head and food on our plates to keep designing new patterns for the world. Having a profit margin on our patterns offers us that.
Is it easy to become a designer?
No, it’s pretty difficult if we have to be completely honest! For a very long time you will not earn enough to live from, unless you already have a big inventory of patterns and grow very big very quickly. So, keep in mind that you will have to be able to combine pattern work with other paying work. However, we don’t want to discourage you! If it’s your passion, you should certainly try! However, we also want to be honest and give a fair insight in the difficulties and efforts that come along with this profession. To read more about what’s involved, you can read the section ‘why are your prices the way they are?’ of this FAQ.
How do I become a designer? Can you give me tips?
Learning this profession took us many, many years. We don’t offer courses in becoming a pattern designer and we don’t have the time or possibility to give individual guidance. However, to read more about what’s involved in this job, you can read the sections called ‘why are your prices the way they are?’ and ‘is it easy to become a designer?’ of this FAQ.
Can you advertise for my designs?
No, we do not promote pattern work that is not our own.