What actually goes in a crochet pattern PDF

By Ali Lehrman · September 16, 2026 · Updated September 18, 2026

A crochet pattern PDF needs nine things: a cover photo of the finished item, a copyright line, a materials list naming yarn brand and colorway, the finished size, a stitch abbreviation key, a notes section covering hook size and round style, written instructions with a stitch count after every round, numbered progress photos, and assembly instructions. Everything past that is decoration.

I have sold patterns on Etsy for a while now and the layout has settled into the same nine sections every time. Below is what each one holds, why it is there, and what a buyer does when it is missing. The examples are lifted out of my own published patterns rather than made up for the post.

I also went through twelve patterns by other designers while writing this, amigurumi and accessories, to check which of my habits are normal and which are just mine. Where the answer was interesting I have said so, and there is a whole section on the one real fork in the road, which is whether you write your rounds as sentences or as a table. A few things past the nine come up along the way, so the list is not the whole post.

The nine sections, in the order they appear

The cover

One photo, full bleed, the name of the pattern across the top, my logo at the bottom. That is the entire page.

It does two jobs. It is the first thing a buyer sees in their file list months later, and it is what their eye checks against while they work. Mine is the same photo I use on the Etsy listing on purpose, so the thing they bought and the thing they downloaded look like the same thing.

Copyright

One paragraph, and it is the same paragraph in every pattern I sell:

This crochet pattern is for personal use only. No part of this pattern may be reproduced, distributed, or resold in any form without prior written permission from the copyright holder. You may sell finished items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by you and not mass-produced. When selling finished items, please credit Amanita Crochet as the pattern designer.

The sentence that earns its place is the second half. “Can I sell what I make from this?” is the question designers get asked most, and answering it on page two means you answer it once instead of forty times. Whatever your answer is, say it. A pattern that is silent on it is a pattern whose buyer has to guess, and they will guess whichever way suits them.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It is what I put in my own files.

Materials

This is the section that decides whether somebody has a good evening or a ruined one, and it is the one most often written thin.

Mine lists, in this order: hook sizes, safety eye size, buttons or hardware, the notions, the craft wire, anything optional, the finished size, and then yarn broken out by what it is used for.

The yarn part is the part to be specific about. Not “brown worsted.” This:

• Skin: Scheepjes Catona 255 (50g) – Nude
• Hair: Scheepjes Catona 157 (25g) – Root Beer
• Jacket: Schachenmayr Catania 412 (25g) – Moss

Brand, colorway number, how much of it, and the color name. The number is what lets somebody buy the right thing. The gram amount is what stops them buying one ball of a color they need three of. And breaking it out by body part means they can substitute the jacket without guessing which of the four browns was the hair.

Say the hook size twice if your pattern uses two. My doll patterns run on a 2.0mm with a 2.5mm for the hair and the hat, and both numbers are in the materials list and again in the bullet above the section that needs them.

Finished size

Inches and centimeters, and the sentence that has to go with it: assuming you use the hook and yarn listed.

My dolls come out at roughly 9.5 inches, about 24 cm. Rusty the owl is about 6 inches, about 15 cm. Those numbers are true for my hook and my yarn and are wrong for anybody using anything else, which is why the qualifier is not optional.

I do not put a gauge swatch in my amigurumi patterns. For a stuffed doll the finished size plus a firm warning about yarn weight does the same job with less friction, and I have never had a tester ask for gauge.

That is not just my habit. Of the twelve other patterns I went through for this post, every single accessory and garment one has a gauge section, and almost none of the amigurumi ones do. The split is that clean. If you are designing something that has to fit a head or a foot, gauge is not optional. If you are designing something stuffed, finished size is doing the work instead.

The stitch key

Every abbreviation the pattern uses. Not a standard list you paste into every file.

My keys run between fourteen and seventeen entries and they are different per pattern, because the pattern is different. The Wicked Witch key carries tr and 3 dc-bobble. Rusty the owl carries tr-inc and neither of those. Buddy the Elf carries 4 dc-bobble, because there are bobbles in his arms. None of those belong in a pattern that does not use them, and a key with twelve stitches the pattern never asks for is a key a beginner reads with mounting dread.

Write the key last, from the finished pattern text, not first from memory. A key written first is a key that is missing whatever you invented on round 30.

Two entries worth stealing, because they save a lot of explaining:

• 1 inc x: x number of stitches in 1 stitch. Ex: 1 inc 3 – 3 stitches in 1 stitch
• dec: decrease

The first one means you never have to write “three stitches into the same stitch” in the body of a pattern again.

Notes

This is the section that stops the emails, and it is where I put anything I do that another designer might do differently.

Mine covers five things:

1. Yarn weight, with the warning that changing it changes the doll. Sport or fine weight, and using something else means it will not look like the photo.
2. That the bullets above each section carry the hook size and the round style for that piece, so they need reading before starting it.
3. The defaults. Mine are spiral rounds, and a 2.0mm hook in the doll patterns, unless a section says otherwise.
4. What a joining round is, in full, including the chain at the start and the slip stitch at the end. I also link a YouTube video that is not mine and say plainly that it is not mine.
5. Use a stitch marker in spiral rounds.

Number three is the one I would not skip. Spiral versus joining rounds is the single biggest silent difference between two designers’ patterns. If you do not say which is your default, everything a buyer makes will come out a little bit wrong and neither of you will be able to work out why from an email.

The two reference pages that are the same in every pattern

Two things live in my front matter that are not about the specific pattern at all.

Foundation chain. Three photos labeling the back bumps, the left loops and the right loops, with a note that I stitch into the back bumps unless the pattern says otherwise. Every pattern I have with a chain start needs this and none of them need it written fresh.

Wrong side versus right side. Two photos, one sentence each. Horizontal bars means wrong side. Vertical V shapes means right side.

Neither is glamorous and both get reused word for word. That is the point. Build them once, keep them in a file, and paste them into every pattern. They turn two of the most common beginner questions into something the buyer answers themselves at eleven at night without messaging you.

How a round is written

One round per line, the instruction, and the stitch count in parentheses at the end. Here is a real arm, off Buddy the Elf:

Rnd 1: 6 sc in MR, slst to close, ch 1 (6)
Rnd 2: (2 sc, 1 inc) * 2, slst to close, ch 1 (8)
Rnd 3: (3 sc, 1 inc) * 2, slst to close, ch 1 (10)
Rnd 4: 10 sc, slst to close, ch 1 (10)
Rnd 5: 1 hdc, 4 dc-bobble, 1 hdc, 7 sc, slst to close, ch 1 (10)
Rnd 6: 10 sc, slst to close, ch 1 (10)
Rnd 7: 6 sc, 1 dec, 2 sc, slst to close, ch 1 (9)
Rnd 8 – Rnd 21: 9 sc, slst to close, ch 1 [14 Rounds] (9)
Rnd 22: 9 sc, slst to close and fasten off (9)

Four things are doing work in there.

The count in parentheses is not decoration. It is the only way a maker can check themselves without unpicking, and it is the only way you can check yourself. If the number at the end of a round does not match what the instruction on that line produces, you have an error and nobody has to find it for you.

The repeat notation is consistent. Parentheses around the repeat, then an asterisk and a number for how many times. Pick one notation and never mix it inside a pattern.

The joining round is written into the line. slst to close, ch 1 sits in the round itself rather than in a note somewhere above, so somebody who lost their place can pick up any line and know what to do.

Multi round spans are one line with two numbers. Rnd 8 – Rnd 21 covers fourteen rounds, so the count of rounds goes in square brackets and the stitch count stays in parentheses. Two different numbers, two different bracket types, no ambiguity.

And the bullets between rounds matter as much as the rounds. Stuff here. Change to gold yarn here. Do not slip stitch to close on this one. Those live in the flow at the moment they apply, not in a paragraph at the end of the section, because nobody reads back up.

Written lines, or a table

If you already know how you write your rounds and you are not looking to change it, skip to Photos. Nothing below here is load bearing for the rest of the post.

Everything above lays the rounds out as sentences. That is not the only way it is done, and once you have seen the alternative it is hard to unsee.

I went through twelve patterns by other designers to check how common each one is. Nine write their rounds as lines, the way I do. Three lay them out in columns.

Three columns is the common version. Round number, instruction, stitch count. The counts sit right aligned in a column of their own, and a note gets its own row across the full width, so a yarn change cannot be mistaken for a round. One of the patterns I looked at fits 43 rounds on a single page that way, with no photos on it at all. Written as sentences that is three pages.

One of them uses four. Round number, instruction, number of rounds, total stitches. That fourth column is the thing I have to invent a bracket convention for. Rnd 8 – Rnd 21 [14 Rounds] in my format is a 14 sitting in a column in that one.

And one does it with no borders at all. Number, instruction and count aligned into three columns with nothing but whitespace between them. It reads as a table and is not one, which is worth knowing if you like the look but not the fight with a table tool.

Here is what you are actually choosing between.

The pattern of it is that a table is better at the checking and worse at the pictures. The two table patterns I looked at both have plenty of photos and both solve it the same way, by chopping the table into short fragments with photos in the gaps and reprinting the header row each time.

So the rough rule I would use. A piece that is mostly numbers and short instructions wants a table. A leg that runs fifty rounds of 19 sc is unreadable as fifty sentences and obvious as fifty rows. A piece that needs a photo every few steps wants written lines, because the words move out of the way of the picture and a table does not.

You do not have to pick once for the whole document. Nothing stops you putting the legs in a table and the assembly in prose.

One thing a table is not: a chart. A chart is a picture of the fabric in symbols. A table is the written pattern with the columns pulled apart. Different thing, different skill, and a table needs no symbol key.

Photos

Numbered, in sequence, referenced from the text at the exact step they belong to.

Gradgirl runs 24 pages and 90 numbered photos. Buddy the Elf is 14 pages and 64. That is more than most patterns carry and it is deliberate: a photo is what turns “sc on the marked stitch of the right leg” into something somebody can actually do.

The rule I follow is that a photo goes wherever the words alone would need a second reading. Joining the legs to the body. Which loops of the chain. Where the shoe point attaches. The tricky assembly steps get three and four photos in a row and I do not apologize for it.

Two mechanical things.

Number them and reference the number. “See photo 5” in the text, “Photo 5” under the picture. Not “see below,” because below moves when the layout does.

Most designers do not do this. Of the twelve patterns I went through, four number their photos and point at the number from the text. The other eight set the photo next to the step and leave it unlabeled, which works right up until the photo lands on the next page, or two photos sit side by side and the sentence says “as shown.”

When you insert a photo in the middle, every number after it changes. The caption, the reference in the written pattern, and your own file name. That is the part nobody warns you about and it is why I ended up building the thing I now use. One pattern of mine had over 100 photos and inserting a single image in the middle cost me half an hour of renumbering.

Assembly is not a chapter at the end

I used to think assembly was a chapter at the end. It is not, or at least not in my patterns.

The pieces get joined as you go. In Buddy the Elf the arms are worked into round 52 of the body itself. The hat is sewn to the hair cap at the end of the hat section, and the hair is glued to the head in the line right after that. Each instruction sits at the end of the piece it finishes, with the photos next to it.

What matters is that every join says which two things, in what orientation, and with what. Sew or glue. Stitch for stitch or roughly. If two pieces join stitch for stitch, their final counts have to match, and that is worth checking before anybody else sees the file.

The last page, which is not one of the nine

A photo of the finished piece and a thank you. Mine say “Thank you for choosing my pattern!” over the same styling as the cover.

Nothing breaks without it. It is just the last thing somebody sees after spending a lot of evenings on a doll, and ending on a blank white page after that feels like hanging up without saying goodbye.

One I say everywhere except in the file

Say which terminology you used, US or UK.

dc means two different stitches depending on which side of the Atlantic wrote it. A UK crocheter working a US pattern without knowing gets a fabric that is visibly wrong and no idea why it came out that way.

I do tell people. There is a US flag badge on the listing photo, and the listing description says it on Etsy, on Ravelry and on my own site. Somebody standing in front of the listing has three chances to see it before they pay.

None of it is in the PDF.

A listing is where somebody decides to buy. The file is what they open at eleven at night six months later, out of a downloads folder, with no listing anywhere near it. By then everything I wrote on Etsy might as well not exist. Whatever a maker needs while they are actually working has to be in the thing that survives the download.

The flag badge is worth a second look anyway, because it is doing two jobs at once. Designers use flags for terminology and also for what language the PDF is written in. So a UK flag might mean British English, or it might mean UK crochet terms, and those are two different claims. A badge that can mean either is not the clean signal it looks like.

Most of us leave it out of the file. Five of the twelve patterns I went through state their terminology inside the PDF and seven do not, and mine are in the seven. It is one line in the stitch key. Still the cheapest fix on this whole list, and I am going to go do it.

The checklist

Before a file goes to a tester or a buyer:

1. Every round’s stitch count matches what that line actually produces.
2. Every repeat bracket multiplies out to the round total.
3. Round numbers in order, none repeated, none skipped.
4. Every photo number in the text points at a photo that exists, and every photo is referenced somewhere.
5. Every abbreviation in the body is in the key, and every entry in the key is used in the body.
6. Terminology named. US or UK.
7. Finished size present, with the hook and yarn qualifier.
8. The PDF opened on a phone, because that is where a lot of people read patterns and it is where a small stitch count column disappears.

Number one is the one that gets skipped, because it is tedious and because you already know what the total is supposed to be. That is exactly why it is the one that ships wrong.

And once it passes, send testers that file, not a draft in a document. Half of what testing finds is layout, and layout problems do not exist in a file that reflows.

Where my app fits

I write all of this in NodeStitch now, which I built because doing it in PowerPoint and then Canva meant typing “Rnd 27” by hand on every line of every pattern I ever wrote.

Five of the eight checks above are handled for me, and not in the same way. Four of them a review pass flags: a round that needs more stitches than the one before it produced, a repeat that does not divide evenly, an abbreviation in the body that is missing from the key, and a photo reference that has come loose, either a “see photo 12” pointing at nothing or a photo sitting there that the text never mentions. The fifth is a different kind of help. Round numbers in order, none repeated and none skipped, is not something it catches after the fact. It is something that cannot go wrong, because the numbering is automatic. The review also catches things that never made it onto my checklist. The one I hit most is a fasten off with no rejoin after it.

Both formats from this post are built in, and the numbering works the same in each. A text box in Pattern mode numbers the lines as you type. A table does it by column: you say which column holds the round numbers and it fills itself. And in both, a note gets its own row rather than eating a round number, which is the thing I never once got right by hand.

The stitch counter reads both of those, and what makes them readable is the numbering: a text box in Pattern mode, or a table with a numbering column. A pattern typed into an ordinary text box is just text to it, which is the one thing worth knowing before you start.

And the photos renumber themselves, which is the part that matters more the more complicated the thing is. An accessory pattern might carry six photos. Gradgirl carries 90, and that is not unusual for amigurumi, where half the difficulty is knowing what the piece is supposed to look like in your hand. At that scale inserting one photo at step 7 is not a small edit. Every caption after it is wrong, every “see photo 12” in the text is wrong, and the file in your folder is wrong. Doing that by hand once cost me half an hour. Now the labels follow the order on the page, and I can unlink any single one I want to name myself.

It does not write patterns. It helps a designer write their own. It flags what looks wrong and it will make the correction, but only one you have read and ticked yourself. Nothing changes in your pattern unless you approve it, and it does not invent a single stitch. Fiber communities are suspicious of anything with AI attached to it and they are right to be, because AI generated patterns waste people’s yarn and time. So I say that first rather than waiting to be asked.

None of the nine sections above need my app. The list is the same whatever you write in, and I wrote patterns in PowerPoint for years using exactly this structure. If you are staying where you are, take the structure and leave the rest.