The great pattern reformatting

What began as the great website rebuild soon became the great pattern reformatting and the great business overhaul. My aim is to improve accessibility and accessibility comes in many guises. File size and downloadability; printability, language and translatability, and usability are all things I’ve wanted to improve. And that means starting at the bottom and working up. We don’t just make these things better by building a new website.

Today I want to talk about the changes I’ve made to all of my premium patterns. This has been one of the biggest tasks I’ve needed to do in recent years and it’s now done!

All of my premium patterns will have more printer friendly options, with the written and charted instructions separated. Most of the patterns that had some charted instructions have been converted to fully charted so that the chart page can function independently or at worst, with only a minor reference to the written instructions.

They’ll each have a greatly reduced file size which means quicker downloading and less storage space. I often find myself needing to remind folks that so many of us still don’t have access to good or reliable internet, let alone a fast service - I’m one of those people and big file sizes are a problem, especially if they don’t come with a warning. I’ve always considered the file size being noted on the download page to be good netiquette but that seems to have gone out of favour, presumably because folks are of the opinion that fast internet is now widespread :/

There’ll also be a larger image on the front cover to make it easier to see what’s what at a glance - they always had larger images on the first page anyway but now it’s the full page.

And all of the premium tutorials will be accessed via download links within the pattern. I’ve done this for a few reasons; firstly, this means you don’t have to download them all if you don’t need them, and folks who use my patterns regularly probably won’t need all of the tutorials. In turn, this means the pattern file size is smaller allowing for a quicker download speed. The download links are in a prominent place, too, so you can see what you need and download before starting.

Doing it this way has other advantages, too. It means that I can provide much more in-depth tutorials and produce a greater range of them. And it means that should I need to update the tutorials, either for an error or to add something extra to the tutorial, I can do it all backend and the same link will get you the latest version - it saves me having to update hundreds of files or pattern listings every time.

And… because I’ve been restructuring how the patterns are presented, in particular the charts, it’s made it much easier for me to add extra notes about how to make alterations to the pattern or how to achieve different sizes. The majority of my patterns have been made fully charted and or had extra size notes added, which is why it’s been so much work and taken so long, but it’s very much been worth it. My patterns have always been multi-sized with lots of options and a few have had extra sizes written in, but having the knowledge of how the pattern is structured is mighty helpful for lots of reasons.

Image description: the full chart for one panel within the Meret pattern.

So! Let me talk through the Meret pattern as an example.

When it was first available as a free PDF it had charted instructions, and the charts for the crown and body were separate due to the layout. When I reconverted it back to a blog post I initially left the charts out as I hadn’t reformatted them yet. That’s now been done and the blog post updated.

The chart here is now for the complete beret, from brim to crown, with the body repeat section marked in the black box. Even the cast on number and increase round are marked.

This one set of instructions is repeated multiple times within one round, and how many times depends on the size being made.

I’ve been able to do the chart like this because of the internal pattern maths. A lot of my patterns are structured in similar ways, meaning all of those could be made fully charted in the same kind of way.

Even those that aren’t could still be made fully charted, perhaps with only a minor reference to the written instructions at the very end or beginning of the pattern.

And let’s have a look at how the written and charted pages look within the pattern layout.

The written instructions neatly fit on one page. This wasn’t possible with all of the patterns, most of them even, but I have considered the layout and improved it on what it was. Under the ‘Special Techniques’ section is the list of tutorials that can be downloaded - those links weren’t active when I converted the PDF to images but they will be when the patterns go live.

Image description: a screenshot of the written instructions within the pattern PDF

Image description: a screenshot of the charted instructions within the pattern PDF

There’s also a new section - ‘Pattern Notes’. It’s within here that you’ll find details on how to make any alterations to the pattern or how to change the range of sizes or how to use different weight yarns, pattern maths permitting, and so on. It’s not an in-depth guide, rather a summary, but it gives you everything you need to know. Any specific notes that a pattern currently has will also be included in this section.

Tutorials on how to grade by gauge, both for sideways and vertically knit Hats, and for Hats that are structured with internal panels like the Meret and for those that aren’t, are at the top of my writing to-do list. Rather than make the pattern extra long by including all of that I’ve opted to add it is a downloadable tutorial. Given my ADHD patterns with lots of pages can be off-putting or difficult to read, even if they’re well laid out, and I’ve approached the pattern reformatting with that in mind.

Looking at the chart page we can see the chart in full alongside a full key and a summary of the pattern notes. This all makes the chart page self-sufficient. These pages within the great reformatting took a lot more work than the written instructions, which is understandable given the variability within charts. Some patterns required more notes for the page to be self-sufficient, some less. Some have larger charts, some smaller. Some patterns have more than one chart and where the charts cover different style options, each has it’s own self-sufficient page; where the charts are all needed within on pattern they’ve been treated as a set.

Although the reformatting is all done, most of the new versions haven’t been published yet. If you’ve purchased any of the recently published designs, such as Slonnet, Square Cubed or Trinity, you’ll have seen the new layout in action. But until I have a new permanent home to host the tutorials and therefore create permanent links for them, it’ll be an impossible amount of work to publish them all with temporary links only to have to update them.

Anyone who’s previously purchased a pattern will have access to the new versions when they’re ready, so you don’t need to wait! Ravelry has an automatic update system but Payhip and Etsy don’t - customers who’ve purchased through these shops will want to keep an eye on The Woolly Hat Society newsletters or this blog as to when they’re ready, then use the download links they were sent after purchase to get the latest versions.

Hopefully though this post has given you some insight into just one aspect of the great business overhaul and what to expect when the new versions go live!