License

Every pattern, chart, PDF and preview image on stitchzoo.com is original work, and stitchzoo.com holds the copyright in it. The patterns are free to use under the terms below. In one line: stitch them, print them, teach with them, sell what you make, but do not pass the charts themselves around as if they were yours.

You may

• Stitch, bead or build any pattern on this site, as many times as you like.
• Print as many copies of a chart as you need, for yourself or for a group.
• Use the patterns at home, in a classroom, in a library, in a craft club, in a care home or in any similar setting.
• Sell physical finished items that you stitched, beaded or built yourself from these charts. Small scale handmade selling at a market, a fair or an online craft shop is fine and needs no permission from us.
• Hand printed charts to your students or to the members of your group.
• Link to any page on this site, from anywhere, including class notes, blog posts and roundups.

You may not

• Re-upload or redistribute the PDFs, the chart images or the preview images anywhere else, including pattern sites, file sharing services, forums, apps, Etsy listings and social media downloads. Link to the pattern page instead, so the chart stays where it is maintained.
• Sell, licence or bundle the charts themselves as a product, digital or printed. That includes putting them in a paid pattern pack, a paid membership, a printed book or a kit.
• Claim the designs as your own work, or register them, or file them as your own intellectual property anywhere.
• Remove the footer credit from a chart you hand on to somebody else. It is one small line and it tells the next person where the pattern came from.

What we will not publish

This site takes a stricter line on copyright than is common in the pattern world, and it is worth saying why in plain terms.

• No licensed or trademarked characters, from films, games, television or anywhere else.
• No patterns converted from artwork this site does not own, including photographs and illustrations found online.
• No copies of other designers' charts, redrawn, recoloured or otherwise.

A great deal of the cross stitch world sells licensed character charts, and the community is rightly protective about pattern theft, because charts are cheap to copy and slow to make. Both of those facts point the same way. A chart derived from someone else's picture is a derivative work of that picture: converting an image into squares does not create a new copyright, it makes a new copy of the old one. So this site only publishes designs it draws itself, or clear public domain motifs, and it applies the same rule to its own palette and symbols rather than borrowing a manufacturer's numbering.

If you believe a design published here infringes your rights, please write to us on the contact page or at [email protected], with the pattern URL and a description of the work you own. Reports like that are acted on quickly, and a disputed pattern comes down while it is being looked at.

The Pattern Maker

The Pattern Maker converts an image you choose into a chart. Whatever you convert stays yours. This site claims no rights whatsoever in your image or in the chart the tool produces from it, and it never stores, publishes, indexes or reuses what you upload.

Because the image is yours, so is the responsibility for it. You need the right to convert the image you upload. Converting somebody else's artwork or a licensed character into a chart is your call and your risk: it is not something this site hosts, publishes or distributes, and the output is not covered by the licence above, because we do not own it.

Attribution and commercial use

Attribution is optional. If you are writing a roundup or a class handout, a link back to the pattern page is genuinely appreciated and helps people find the printable version rather than a screenshot of it.

If you want to do something with the charts that is not in the "You may" list above, for example including them in a commercial product, a kit or a paid course, ask first on the contact page. The answer is often yes, and it is quicker to ask than to guess. See also the terms for how the site itself may be used.

Last updated: August 2026