Working with a brand new crochet designer this week – my experience:
I was both designer and tech editor this week. Very different roles and both have their enjoyable moments and challenges. I managed to send off another magazine submission for this Winter’s editions and last night, another magazine submission call popped into my inbox!
As a crocheter, I’m trying to find time to both crochet for my own pleasure and also swatch up some ideas to submit as designs. It’s quite a juggle really, especially as I have another part time job too. So my brain has felt a bit pushed to the creative limit this week! And then I did a lovely tech edit this week for a brand new designer. It was their first pattern so I wanted to treat it with kid gloves. This is what I want to talk about – working with a designer for the very first time as this may be you one day if you haven’t yet dipped your toes into the pool of pattern writing!
Good communication is key between designer and tech editor because it can be quite scary the first time you hand your pattern to a tech editor. Lots of things go through your mind – is my pattern badly written? Does it make sense? Are they going to change it completely?? So with this designer, when she asked me what was involved in the process, I was really clear about my role (I’m going to talk more about that next week).
When I received the pattern via email, I quickly scanned it and gave an estimation of how long it would take to edit and how much it would cost the designer. The pattern was well written as in, a clear, simple format, no fancy frills on the page that can be distracting, good, clear pictures of the finished item and stitch tutorials etc. But this is when it got very interesting….I started the tech edit, going through checking for grammar and spelling mistakes, making sure the abbreviations were correct etc, and then I started to check the pattern line by line – and that’s where I suggested a few changes. The pattern was accurately written and it made perfect sense but how the pattern was written was very different from the norm. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that – I could understand it as I’m sure you could too but there’s many other things to consider as a designer / pattern writer.
Who is buying your pattern? In this case an advanced beginner / intermediate level of skill was required. 30 years crochet experience does not mean 100% knowledge of all things crochet! So I suggested a reformat of the instructions to a more standard way. Having worked with quite a few designers, a large yarn brand and submitted one pattern to a magazine, I’m very familiar of what a pattern should look like. The other thing to consider as a designer / pattern writer is the length of your pattern. Many people print off their patterns as it’s just easier to grab and go – I do this if I’m making a bigger project. If you can reduce the number of pages your customers will be much happier not having to use up lots of ink and paper. But no one wants to be scrolling back and forth on a screen (mobile!!) for pages and pages trying to find where they left off.
Finally, many of us are seasoned crocheters and used to a fairly standard style of patterns. When I get a pattern that isn’t in an easy format, it does throw me – I have to spend a little longer working out the instructions and I even make notes on the page. Not a deal breaker but I prefer a ‘grab and go’ pattern! So I sent an email back to the designer explaining that it was going to take me longer and why – I put this in a way that I hope didn’t make the designer feel like they’d written a terrible pattern – I was encouraging but asked if they wanted me to continue with the edit. Luckily they said yes and I finished editing the pattern. I sent it off and I am waiting for feedback which I hope to give you next week!
The takeaways for you if you’re thinking of writing a pattern for the first time or may want to prefect your pattern writing skills:
- Think about who is going to buy this pattern. How experienced do they need to be and let your instructions reflect that.
- When you publish the pattern, be very clear what skill level your pattern is aimed at.
- Keep your instructions simple, as concise as possible and use photo tutorials or video links for particularly tricky elements of the pattern.
- Even if you’re not ready to have a tech editor look at your work, get someone else to read it. You’ll be amazed at the small spelling mistakes that you can miss.
I do hope this has been helpful. Do get in contact if you have any questions about this process.