To test or not to test a pattern

I have been knitting and crocheting for more than 25 years. When I was a kid I was always wearing something made by myself. But after getting older I enjoyed the process of making things and not the result. Even now I have lots of unfinished sweaters in my wardrobe. Every time I see them I promise myself to bring them to life, but time passes and nothing happens. Few years ago I started to think of selling my stuff, but the idea was so unshaped and it took long time before it came true. Few months ago I opened my shop on Etsy.com and a month ago I created my first pattern.

Creating patterns is a very nice thing to do and I really enjoy making them. I can spend long hours with my hook, yarn and camera, and then some more hours in front of computer writing instructions and putting them together with pictures. But then a question comes if I have to test my pattern or not.

I made a small research reading other people’s opinions. Some designers are very confident in their skills and they consider themselves the best testers for their own patterns. As I found out many people create a pattern and then test it themselves to knit or crochet few more items. Some designers ask their friends to test for them. Some don’t test at all.

I have a journalistic background. I worked as a journalist in a newspaper and an editor of a magazine. I have participated in creating articles from both sides and I know for sure that every text must be edited few times by different people. And every time mistakes will be found. And I know how confusing it is when you crochet or knit something according to the pattern but suddenly something goes wrong and you don’t understand why. And you have to remake your rows again and again, and still you don’t achieve the desired result. So my strong opinion is that every pattern must be tested by few different people before being distributed.

But where to find testers? That was a hard question for me and I could not find answer. I have never participated in special forums or teams of professional crafters, I have never read someone’s specialized blogs, I had absolutely no idea where testers should be looked for. And suddenly by occasion I got a link to Free Pattern Testers Group on Ravelry.com web-site. Wow! This is how it started.

I decided to write about my own experience with testing pattern within this group. Maybe it will be useful for some other starting designers who want their patterns to be perfect.

Ravelry in general is a fantastic community of people from all over the world crazy about knitting and crocheting. If you love crafting you should definitely join it! There are so many professionals able to answer any question. Free Pattern Testers Group is a group with lots of members. You can test your patterns for free there: you just give your pattern to testers for free and they also don’t charge you for their work. As I understood testers are just people who love to knit and crochet and who are searching new nice patterns to try.

What is great about this group (personally for me) is that it unites both very experienced crafters and those who only begin – you can meet people with different skill level there. And this is great for testing, because you can check how different people read your pattern, for which level it is, is it easy to follow or not.

For me as a non-native English speaker it was very important to check terms and spelling. I have read hundreds of patterns myself, but you know – it does not help very much when you start creating your own one. You have to include stitch instructions and write instructions yourself for every row, and sometimes it is not easy at all.

I decided to start my testing with a very easy pattern of a crocheted cotton coaster. I wrote instructions, took pictures of every row and combined it into a PDF file.

When you first enter Free Pattern Testers Group it may be very complicated to understand how the whole process is organized. There are very strict rules for both testers and designers and you have to read many pages before you start. I find it great! I don’t know who launched this group, who’s idea it was and who is a leader but I would like to thank him/her for a fantastic job!

I did not dare to post my first test for few weeks being afraid of making mistake, but then decided just to post it and learn everything as I go. And it was a right decision: I got few friendly messages from admin explaining what I am doing wrong and it helped a lot. During the first hour few people asked if they can test for me and that was a great surprise. I got 7 testers in one day (though I thought I need just 5) and they started to work at once. Very exciting!!

As testers worked with my pattern they posted their suggestions and notes in a test thread. Everyone from working team can join the discussion and ask or answer questions. If required testers post pictures of ready item and a generic survey (very helpful)!

And about the result… Fantastic testers who are working with me have already found few very important mistakes!! While I thought my pattern was perfect… They also corrected spelling mistakes and misprints and gave me useful suggestions about American terminology and abbreviations used. I have already edited my pattern few times and will probably continue with this before my pattern gets really perfect! I thank all testers who decided to work with me. I really appreciate that!

p.s. Well… I liked the whole process so much that there will probably be many more patterns to test…