Below, I’ve compiled a list of the questions I’m asked most often. This FAQ is a work in progress and I’ll add answers as more questions arise.
If your question is not answered here, or you’d like any more information, please email me.
About PlanetJune
About PlanetJune Patterns
Buying Patterns
Commission Requests
Order Troubleshooting
Translations
Teaching
Linking
Reviews and Advertising
Craft Business Advice
PlanetJune is a one-woman business, run by me: June Gilbank. I design crochet patterns and write craft books, but that’s not the whole story: I also maintain the PlanetJune website and online shop, ship orders, answer questions, post tutorials and video tutorials, and much more. Basically, anything you see with the word PlanetJune attached to it is created 100% by me.
I try to answer questions as quickly as possible, but please be patient with me if I can’t reply immediately; I have a lot on my plate, but I’m always happy to hear from you and to help wherever I can! If you have a quick question, you’ll probably get a faster response from me if you ask me through Twitter (@PlanetJune).
A CAL is where a pattern (or several) are chosen, and people crochet them at the same time. Every month, we have a PlanetJune Crochet-Along (CAL) at the PlanetJune Ravelry group. It’s a lot of fun, a good way to make friends with other friendly crocheters from all over the world, and a chance to crochet the same patterns at the same time as others, ask questions, get help, and take cute photos of what you’ve made for everyone else to admire!
For further details and step-by-step instructions for joining in, see the PlanetJune Crochet-Along FAQ.
I’ve created many step-by-step photo and video tutorials that you can use to help you out, if you need it. If you’re a complete beginner, you’ll want to start with the Basics section, then move to Amigurumi Essentials. You can find them all at www.planetjune.com/help.
You might also like to look at my book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amigurumi. It’s a very useful reference book to keep at hand, as it includes:
Don’t be intimidated to try my patterns as a beginner to crochet: almost all my designs are worked in only single crochet (the most basic crochet stitch!) with increases and decreases for shaping. My patterns always explain any special stitches or techniques required with complete photo tutorials, and the few intermediate level patterns are marked as such in the pattern descriptions in my shop.
As a beginner, I would advise staying away from any of the ‘fuzzy’ patterns or patterns that include colour changes, as those techniques are a little more advanced. Get comfortable with making single-coloured amigurumi first, until reading an amigurumi pattern, forming a magic ring and making an invisible decrease are easy for you; then you can add to your skills!
For beginners, I recommend PocketAmi Sets 1 & 2. They are specifically designed for beginners as they are easy and quick to make, with three sweet pocket animals included in each set!
If you’d like to get your feet wet with a free pattern, many of mine are very simple no-sew designs, which makes them great for beginners! You can use them to practice the magic ring, increasing, and decreasing (the basics you’ll need to make any amigurumi). Some perfect beginner options are:
And here’s a small selection of examples of other simple choices from my pattern catalogue. These have more pieces, so require some assembly, but the crocheting is no more difficult than for the one-piece patterns above:
And remember, all my patterns come with unlimited support available by email, so you can always email me with any questions, both before and after purchase!
I’m updating my entire back catalogue of patterns with extra information and tips and a new space-saving layout, and re-releasing them in batches as they are ready. Please see the Pattern Re-Release FAQ for more details.
You don’t need a PayPal account to be able to order from my shop – I use PayPal as my credit card processor, so, provided you have a credit card, you should be able to order without having a PayPal account, by providing your credit card details and billing address on the PayPal screen (this won’t create a PayPal account, just process your credit card payment).
All my prices are in US dollars (USD). Don’t worry if you’re in another country and don’t use USD; you can still buy from my shop with no problems!
All patterns bought from the PlanetJune shop (www.planetjune.com/shop) are automatically available for immediate download from your PlanetJune account as soon as you have completed your order and payment. (Need help with that? Read the download instructions.)
Note: if the pattern still appears in your shopping cart and there’s no record of your order in ‘My Account’, that means your order was not completed (check your PayPal – you’ll see that no payment was made to me). Log back in to your PlanetJune account, go to checkout again and you’ll be redirected to PayPal so you can pay. Once payment is complete, you’ll be returned from PayPal back to my shop, where you’ll be able to download your pattern immediately.
If you bought a pattern from my Etsy or ArtFire shops, I will email your patterns to you within 24-48 hours (wherever possible). Please remember to check your Spam folder if you don’t see my email. I recommend that you purchase from my own shop in future, so you won’t have to wait to receive your patterns!
By purchasing any PlanetJune patterns, you are not buying a copy of a pattern; you’re buying far more: a perpetual single-user licence for the pattern.
Your licence entitles you to:
Your licence is non-transferable and PlanetJune patterns may not be shared, passed on to others, re-sold, or redistributed in any other way.
There are two ways in which you can send my patterns as a gift:
Yes, you may sell items made from my patterns, provided you comply with the following:
If you have an online shop where you sell items made from my patterns, you’re eligible to be included in my list of PlanetJune-designed toy sellers, and get some free publicity for your shop. (See the bottom of that page for details of how to sign up – it’s 100% free; my service to you!)
All my patterns are listed on Ravelry so, if you’d like to keep track on Ravelry of which PlanetJune patterns you own, simply find the appropriate patterns and click ‘add to library’ from the pattern page (in the same way as you can add the books and magazines you own). The patterns will be listed as ‘Single Patterns’ in your library.
However, I do not sell my patterns through Ravelry: the PlanetJune shop has its own instant download system and lets me maintain complete control over my patterns. If I used Ravelry instead:
Selling via Ravelry is a good solution for small-volume sellers who don’t want the hassle of creating and maintaining their own shop, but I prefer to keep control over my patterns.
I have no way to offer printed patterns to you at a reasonable price – as I’m living in South Africa at the moment, the cost of printing and shipping printed pages to you would be ridiculous (it would more than double the price of each pattern!), and the package may well take weeks to arrive, assuming it doesn’t get lost in the post.
If you would like a printed copy but don’t have a printer, you could ask a friend or family member to print your patterns for you, or you could take the PDFs to a print shop (or your local library, probably) and get them printed there. Any of these options would be far cheaper than having me print and post them, and you’d get them much more quickly too!
I’ve started a new crowd-sourced commissions process, where you can pledge an amount of your choice towards the commission of a new design. When the design is fully funded, I will create the design for you! I’m using this method so I can get a feel for which designs will be popular and be paid a fair price for my work in creating the design without charging any one person excessively.
If the design you want isn’t on my commissions list, submit the form at the bottom of the Commissions page if you’d like me to add your suggestion to the options, or, if you’d like a design more quickly and are willing to pay the full cost of the design process, you can commission me privately. The cost for a private commission would vary depending on:
Before you contact me to request a commission, please consider these points:
If all this sounds good, please email me with your ideas and we’ll start the conversation!
I am a designer and writer, and my time is more than filled with creating new designs, running my shop and blog, and providing assistance to my customers. My process is very time-intensive as I take so much care to make my animals to a very high standard and to give the finished animals the cutest face and personality possible. I refuse to compromise on quality, so, unfortunately, I can no longer accept any commissions for finished items as there aren’t enough hours in the day!
As I do allow sales of finished items based on my designs, you may be able to commission a piece from one of my customers. I’m compiling a list of customers with online shops selling PlanetJune-designed toys that they’ve crocheted, so I suggest you look there! (Please note that although other people work from my patterns, they will not create exact replicas of my work – this is the nature of handcrafts, that no two pieces are exactly alike. Please also note that I make no claim as to the quality of their work or how it compares with my original designs; I cannot be held responsible for others’ work, so I suggest you look carefully at the crocheter’s previous work before deciding whether to commission them.)
I’m afraid not! These are one-of-a-kind art pieces that take me weeks to create. The originals aren’t for sale and they aren’t intended to be reproduced. I create them out of love for the subject and I hope you’ll enjoy my photos of the finished artworks. (Also, there’s the issue of licensing with trademarked characters such as the Discworld and Reepicheep – I can’t make a profit on unlicensed merchandise; it wouldn’t be legal.)
I’m afraid not! Although most of my designs are specifically created with the intention to produce easy-to-follow patterns from them, I sometimes crochet art pieces which are one-of-a-kind pieces and a) far too complicated to make into patterns and/or b) fan art involving trademarked characters such as the Discworld and Reepicheep (I can’t make a profit on unlicensed merchandise; it wouldn’t be legal).
But, you can buy patterns for some of the non-trademarked elements of my art pieces, e.g. Discworld’s Elephants and Sea Turtle, Reepicheep’s Water Lily, Columbo’s Dog…
I’m creating a reference library of crochet tips and techniques, demonstrated through photo and video tutorials, and I’m always happy to hear your requests and ideas for new tutorials I can make! Please contact me with your requests.
Please be aware though that I create my videos to support my own patterns. Each one takes me several hours to film and edit, and nobody pays me to make them – I just create them as a service to help my customers. I’m afraid I only have time to make videos that demonstrate techniques I use in my designs. Of course, my future designs may require different techniques, so I may still be able make the video at a later date when it’s needed to support a new pattern!
You can download your pattern from your PlanetJune account (see www.planetjune.com/download for instructions).
Please check your Spam folder, and add shop@planetjune.com to your contacts or safe list so you’ll receive future emails in your inbox.
If you didn’t create a PlanetJune account, and used the PayPal Express Checkout, my shop would have created an account, and a temporary password, for you. You should have received an email with the password – if you didn’t receive it, it’s probably in your Spam folder.
Please check your Spam, and if you don’t find the email, click ‘Forgot your password?’ from the login screen, enter your email address (the one you used with your PayPal account) and my system will send you a new temporary password (again, check your Spam if you don’t see the email). You can change your password to something you’ll remember once you’ve logged in!
Downloads are available for up to 5 attempts over a 2 week period. If you’ve used up all 5 attempts, or waited for over 2 weeks to download your pattern, the download button will no longer be visible.
If you need to download pattern(s) again, please contact me and I’ll be happy to re-enable the download. So that I can track down your order, please include your 5-digit order number (you’ll find the number in your order confirmation email, and in your list of orders in My Account).
Please note that iPads cannot open zip files, so you must either download the pattern(s) to your computer or download an app like iDownloads+ that can open them. See my iDownloads+ tutorial for details (it’s a free app).
If you don’t have a suitable app and you’d like to view your patterns on your iPad:
If you try to open your pattern zip file and get a message that your WinZip trial has expired, please do not purchase the WinZip software. Windows can open your zip files (at no cost!) – all you need to do is remove the WinZip trial and it will work correctly. To do this:
Quality control is very important to me, and, until such a time as I am able to provide official translations of my patterns that are guaranteed to meet my standards for quality and accuracy, my patterns are only available in English (with standard/US crochet terminology).
While I do appreciate the thought (thank you!), I’ve had many offers to translate my patterns into various languages, but I just don’t have time to do justice to the resulting translations. Once I received the translated text, I’d still have to format each pattern for publication and create a supporting webpage for it – all of which is very time-consuming. And, once I started publishing any translations, I know I’d be swamped with requests for every pattern in many languages. With close to 150 patterns (and counting)in my catalogue, even in just a handful of languages, you can see why I just can’t consider this.
The other major reason that I don’t plan to ever offer translations of my patterns is that I can’t provide support for patterns written in a language I don’t speak, and providing patterns without any follow-up support available is not the PlanetJune way!
You are very welcome to translate any of my patterns for your own personal use, but you may not share your translations with anyone else, either online or offline. I make my living from selling my crochet patterns. My ‘free’ patterns are not entirely free: I provide them as donationware (so that you can choose to compensate me for my time in creating and sharing these patterns), and to introduce you to my work so you can be confident of the quality and clarity of my patterns before you choose to buy more patterns from my shop. As such, I cannot allow my patterns, or translations of them, to be published anywhere apart from on my own website: www.planetjune.com.
Yes, you are very welcome to use any of my paid or free (donationware) patterns to teach with, provided you notify me in advance and comply with my terms below:
You may not share excerpts from the pattern or printouts of the web version with your students.
You are very welcome to link back to any of the patterns, tutorials and posts on my site; you also have permission to include one of my photos with your link if you wish, provided you make clear that it’s my photo. You may not reproduce my entire pattern/tutorial/post content in full, but a link and one photo is fine.
For my crochet tutorials, you may link directly to specific tutorials, and/or to the crochet tutorial index at www.planetjune.com/help.
You are very welcome to include a link referencing any of my crochet tutorials or patterns in your own patterns. (You may not, however, copy or otherwise reproduce any part of my patterns, tutorials or photos in your own patterns.)
To make this easier for you, all my free patterns and tutorials have a shortlink that goes directly to the pattern instructions and will look neater in your printed pattern (e.g. www.planetjune.com/hearts or www.planetjune.com/magicring). There should be instructions on each pattern/tutorial page that include the relevant shortlink. If you don’t see the shortlink for the pattern/tutorial you wish to reference, please email me to ask for it!
For my crochet tutorials, you may link directly to specific tutorials, and/or to the crochet tutorial index at www.planetjune.com/help.
You may not copy or otherwise reproduce any part of my patterns, tutorials or photos in your own patterns, but you are very welcome to include a link referencing any of my crochet tutorials or patterns in your own patterns.
To make this easier for you, all my free patterns and tutorials have a shortlink that goes directly to the pattern instructions and will look neater in your printed pattern (e.g. www.planetjune.com/hearts or www.planetjune.com/magicring). There should be instructions on each pattern/tutorial page that include the relevant shortlink. If you don’t see the shortlink for the pattern/tutorial you wish to reference, please email me to ask for it!
For my crochet tutorials, you may link directly to specific tutorials, and/or to the crochet tutorial index at www.planetjune.com/help.
Pattern photos: You may post one of my pattern photos on your website, provided you credit me as the designer and provide a link back to my website so people know where to buy the pattern. You may not reproduce my entire pattern in full, but a link and one photo is fine.
Tutorial photos: You may post one photo from a tutorial to accompany a link to my tutorial, provided you make clear that it’s my photo, and include a link to the tutorial on my site. You may not reproduce my entire tutorial in full, but a link and one photo is fine.
I’m very happy to review craft books and products that may interest me and my readers. Please contact me prior to sending items for review and/or if you’d like to know about my readership statistics (I won’t post them here, as they change over time!).
Please be aware that my reviews are well-respected because I write honest, thorough reviews, stating my real opinion about the product; both good and bad points. I will not accept payment to write a review, or recommend a product I do not believe in.
To avoid misleading my readers, I do not accept any paid advertising on PlanetJune. Any websites, products, or services that are mentioned on PlanetJune are done so as personal recommendations from me. If you’d like me to review your product/service instead, please see my Reviews FAQ answer.
All content on PlanetJune is written by me, June Gilbank. I do not accept any external content (guest posts, sponsored posts, etc).
If you’d like to sell your own patterns or handmade goods online, there are many options open to you. I’ve put together an overview of some of the major options with the main positive and negative points of each, so you can figure out which venue may be the best fit for you: Selling Crafts and Patterns Online.
Setting prices for amigurumi – or any handcrafted items – can be very tricky. See my Pricing Amigurumi article for some pointers that may help you to set reasonable and realistic prices if you want to sell the amigurumi you’ve crocheted. (And remember, you may sell items made from any of my patterns, provided you give me credit as the designer – don’t forget to add your online shop to my Sellers List so I can refer people your way!)
If you have a great idea for a book, there’s no one right way to go about trying to get it published. You can hire an agent to help you through it all and make sure you find a good publisher and get a good deal, but they’d take a cut of your fee (typically 10%), so you may choose to go it alone.
I’ve never actually approached a publisher – they came to me – but if you’re not that fortunate, the best way to try to get your book published is to submit a proposal to a publisher. To do that:
Go to the magazine’s website and find their submission guidelines. As with book proposals (above) the requirements vary for each publication, so make sure you follow the guidelines exactly or they may well throw out your submission.
Please contact me with any other questions and I’ll add them to this FAQ!
I read and appreciate every comment I receive - thank you! Please note that I only respond to comments here on the blog, so please return to this post to see my reply, or check the above box to subscribe to comments on this post by email.
Please also note that I only speak English and cannot respond to questions or comments written in other languages. - June
Cody said
Hi June,
Your patterns are amazing. I’m wondering how simple your patterns are. My wife and I have no crocheting experience but we’d like to give your designs a try. Would you suggest working on something easier first, or is it typically simple enough to jump right in to?
I understand this is a completely subjective question, just thought I’d give it a shot.
Thanks,
Cody
June said
Cody, you’re not the first person to ask this! Thanks for giving me a reason to make time to write my answer up fully for my FAQ
You can now find the answer to your question here: http://www.planetjune.com/blog/faq/#patterns
Andrea said
I love your patterns but I can’t download them to my iPad! (not Safari-friendly) Why can’t we buy patterns directly into our Ravelry libraries, that way we would have online (paperless) access to our copy of the pattern at all times.
I can download/save to my laptop at home and then print out the pattern, but that’s not generally how I work and it’s much more restrictive for when I’m traveling or just want to make something on a whim.
Just wondering.
June said
Andrea, I am sorry you feel inconvenienced! I have set up my own shop with my own download system so I have complete control over my patterns. If I used Ravelry instead, not only would I lose control over my patterns (they’d no longer stored on my own server) but I’d also lose $20 per month in fees and I’d have to raise my pattern prices to compensate for that! Ravelry is a good solution for small-volume sellers who don’t want the hassle of creating and maintaining their own shop, but I prefer to keep control over my patterns. I hope you can understand my reasons.
As for your iPad, as I specify in my download instructions, you can download your pattern on your computer, unzip it, and then transfer the PDF to your iPad – it’s a small inconvenience, but not insurmountable. Your entire pattern library would barely make a dent in your iPad’s storage, and by storing the PDFs directly on your iPad, you’d also be able to access your patterns when you’re offline!
June said
Following up on this, you can now download and unzip your patterns on your iPad using a free app such as iDownloads+. I’ve written a tutorial with full instructions: Open zip files on your iPad.
maryethal said
i appreciate your site so so much i have a broken foot and i have nothing to do but crochet ! and i have decorated my house with so so many of your ideas !!! keep up the good work !
Jacqui said
hi June,
i’m a begginer at crochet and i have mastered single crochet (ie counting stitches, making the right stitch), but my patch has gone curvy. i think i have an issue with tension in the yarn, any tips for overcoming this?
just curious,
Jacqui
Brigitte Goodman said
I just love your work, especially the terry-pratchett-disc-world-amigurumi. Can’t we see a bigger picture of it, it is so awful. Keep up your good work. Your voice and accent are beautiful so even people with little knowledge of English can understand your tutorials. Thank you! Brigitte from Austria
June said
I hope you didn’t really mean to write ‘awful’ there, Brigitte..! If you click any of the pictures in my original amigurumi Discworld post, it’ll take you to the larger versions on Flickr