May I steal your design...

Yeah,i know how you feel - there was somebody on Etsy asking me to email them my Cute Alien Creature pattern! I would never give my pattern for free to anyone. What are they thinking when asking us to do that?

I don't know ... the problem is that often people who are selling plushies, too ask me for tips and patterns ... yes if I would give them all the information ... they will earn money with them.

For me it is important to test my knowledge and I am happy that I enjoy testing everything and often need no help for anything.

So I can't understand people who wanna have all the knowlegde from others.

giving out one or two patterns for free is awesome it boosts customers, if i am unsure about a pattern i can test it on a few customers by giving it out free, but people who resell and recreate suck, oh andaneniine thats pretty selfish of you considering that that pattern isn't an original idea there are 100s of simular and nearly idneticial ones for free in knitting and plushie making

Personally I think it depends on the pattern. A easy and free one that is common I would give away, e.g. how to make a ball (all i could think of)
For me, I'm hesitant about telling potential customers how I make my bracelets as I would rather sell the bracelet then tell someone how to make one of their own, which is kinda common actually, I just feel like if I'm saying how to do it I'm losing a customer which i don't have many of anyway.

I've had a few people ask me what ingredients and how much I use in my soaps... I gladly list ingredients so people know what they're buying, but I would never give an actual recipe away for free. All of my recipes are my own originals and there are tons of other resources! Someone doesn't want to spend their own time and money finding recipes? Too bad, I don't give mine out.

It definitely is frustrating.

you have a right to protect your plushie patterns, Ive seen your work on here and its fab so no wonder its worth protecting, just like resteraunts have secret sauce sometimes you gotta keep your best work exclusive, best thing to do is graciously decline and express that your plushies are a well kept secret. Best of luck with it all anyway.

Newbie here, surfing around looking at any post looking like it is interesting, this one is.

OK, I too, would get annoyed if someone asked for a pattern. I mean, I've been a member for like 24 hours now and have four projects (two with How Tos) up so far, and those are fair game- glad to show others how I do stuff.

Oh, when someone at a craft fair asked about pattern for sale for an item I made and I said I didn't sell the pattern, they said ok. At the end of the show, we swapped something for fun, and even though I didn't even need a hat she swapped to me, she did get my item she was looking for and sure enough- standing about 5' from me, took out a seam ripper, and took the item apart after she saw how it was assembled, and smiled at me and said, "Oh, that's okay- I know how you did it now, and with all the pieces, I now have a sort of pattern to work with!"

Sheesh

Wow, that person really had no tact. Luckily, unless you're a master chemist, you won't know the exact proportions of the ingredients I use in my soaps, lol.

I agree though that tutorials are out there for a reason--to share what you want to share! People need to have respect for that.

Dang, Maytag Suzanne, that person was just an asshole. lol Thats just cruel to destroy someones work & steal it right in front of them. man...

Anyway. If it was something im selling (or planning to sell) I wont share a plushie tutorial either. I make plushies of my fav cartoon characters, & I spend a lot of time lookin at pics of them & figuring out a pattern, & drawing them out (sometimes takes 2-3 days). Thats just unfair to me to give away my talent & hard work. I agree.
BUT if it is something Super simple (like dragoness said) that people could figure out anyway, i would share it. Afterall, thats how i got into making plushies, i followed other people tutorials & got interested in it. ...first one i ever did was the Domo plushie tutorial on this site. ;)

I agree ladies, that was really rude and tactless of her to do

Hey, some things folks just like taking credit for, I suppose.

I got someone on trouble at Ebay one time because I was making applique Sunbonnet Sue quilt blocks, and I sold a set to some one, and the materials I recognized because I ran out of a print of fabric (black) and I snipped it out of my daughters dress (shhh-- it was a long hidden seam, she was none the wiser). Then I saw this person trying to sell the set saying they were vintage fabrics that she found in her grandma's attic or something, and it was clearly my work.

How did I prove it to Ebay? Simple, I took a photo of kiddo's dress seam showing the exact shape of the shoe!

It's one thing to get quilt blocks (or any other partial finished item) from a crafter and putting it together and stylize as your own with no credit back to the maker of the block etc (which isn't nice), but to put it off as something valuable and sentimental as your own dearly departed granny's attic is just WRONG.

Have a nice day, all you NICE people here at CO+K

i think if people want it bad enough and we didnt post how tos in the first place they could figure out their own version

Yeah, but it's likely they won't make it very unique. I've seen people copy things I do and they don't do more than change the color of something. It's pretty frustrating.

And it's even worse when they claim it's their own original recipe or design or whatever.

Well if you don't want people messing around with your designs/patterns then get a copyright for them. This way if a person makes one of the plushies you made you can force them to stop and if they don't you can take them to court.