Updates to the free patterns

I’ve said this before but I’ll mention it again as I’ve had concerned folks getting in touch - yes, the free patterns and free tutorial PDFs will be going from this website but they are not going completely!

The free content is staying, it’s just the format that’s changing.

As I’ve been working through, overhauling the blog and making changes, I’ve been adding in new free tutorials and I’ve a list of currently premium patterns that will be made free at some point throughout this year. Those patterns have already been withdrawn from sale so no-one has the unpleasant surprise of finding out something they paid for one week is free the next.

I’ll talk more about those another time. Today I want to talk through some of the changes we’ve made ahead of the new website being ready.

I’ve said previously that one of the aims of making this big change - switching each free pattern and each free tutorial into a blog post - was to provide better support. Each one now has a comments section where you can ask questions or read through previous responses.

Some of these weren’t blog posts for long before I converted them all to PDFs a decade or so ago, if at all, so there is an absence of questions right now on many of them. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ask away! And it does mean that while we wait for the new website and it’s support forum, there’s somewhere that I can help you that isn’t reliant on Ravelry or Facebook. We’ve brilliant and helpful moderators in both groups who do a fantastic job of helping you work through your Hats and we’re more than happy for you to ask there, but I know many can’t access those sites.

Even when we have the new support centre on the website, not everyone will want to join to ask a question about a technique and that’s ok too, the comments section will work perfectly.

Over the years I’ve tried a few times to implement a print to PDF option for blog posts, but it never seemed to work very well. I don’t know if SquareSpace have made changes backend, or maybe I’ve not tried as recently I as remember, but I discovered to my surprise that with a bit of juggling of image size and page layout, it’s entirely possible to create a tidy PDF by right clicking and printing within your browser. You’ll want to click through and be on that blog post, rather than browsing the blog generally, i.e. as if you were to read or post a comment, to get the tidiest PDF option.

With help, we’ve been able to test several different browsers and see what options there are for printing. It’s not 100% perfect, in that some created a small block of empty space at the top of the PDF, or some included the sidebar albeit very neatly - it literally printed the screen, there’s no messy code or info all over the place - but each produced a perfectly clear layout and I was impressed, considering these are the interim options.

One of my key concerns has been creating a consistent layout that wouldn’t require a daft amount of pages. The tutorials are a little different to the patterns, and I’ll talk about them more in the next few days as they’re much more variable in length with more photos.

Each free pattern now has one key image, in square format at a more web friendly resolution, with it’s name and website URL so that you’ve always got those details at the beginning of the pattern. I don’t know about anyone else but whenever I download a pattern that’s missing a title and/or main image, I can never remember what it’s for, even if the pattern name is in the file name.

Each free pattern blog post now has a consistent layout, with key information all in the same places. Each technique that I’ve a blog post for is linked right there where you need it, too.

All other photos, chat or anything not immediately relevant to the pattern has been moved to the end of each blog post. This means you get to the important stuff sooner. Not only that, when you right click to print your PDF it’s now easier to select which pages to print, so you can leave those pages off. Most of the patterns are fitting comfortably on 3 or 4 pages without needing to print all those extra photos.

Most browser printing options give you the chance to scale the PDF and text, to include margins or not, and more. There’s quite a bit of flexibility and although that block of empty space that some browsers read in SquareSpace’s code can knock the main image across 2 pages, it’s not an issue with every browser and it shouldn’t be an issue once the new site is launched.

I’m pleased with how these main pattern images look, and when printing to PDF from a blog post they make the whole pattern feel better presented. The template was quick to use once I stopped fiddling with ratios (if you’re remotely interested, the grey banner behind the title is 133px deep; the name text is 100pt and the URL text 33pt); it’s simple and does a good job of not only making older photos look better but in unifying them all.

These image updates aren’t just going to help you with printing to PDF or finding the right post. One area that I’ve always been rather rubbish at is marketing, particularly Pinterest. Making these changes and updating the patterns will be of huge help there, too, in not only making sure the website gets the traffic it should (rather than it missing out due to hotlinking or bots swiping the PDF files) but also in making sure folks know the Hat’s name and where to find it. They’re that bit clearer in saying “hey, this is a Woolly Wormhead Hat!”.

I had originally said all the files would go on the 23rd - today! - but the last couple of weeks have been really difficult on a personal level and I’m not quite where I should be in getting ready for this. I’ve not much left to do, so I’ll leave them up for a more days.

The new site is being built in Wordpress and Wordpress has a whole bunch of print to PDF options, and I’m confident that we’ll have a solution that improves on the things that are lacking now. I don’t know yet what those options might be, but right now this is working pretty well.

Why don’t you click on one of the images above and see what the print to PDF options are like for your browser?

New website - further explanation about the free content, PDFs and blog posts

There's an awful lot of changes going on and I'm wanting to explain as much as I can where I can, and keep everyone in the loop. I'm not building it though, so there are some things I can't answer but I'll do what I can!

This is a long post that I’ve broken down into sections and short paragraphs.

The blog is hard to read, the images are large and the font small.

I know my current website isn't accessible, that's why the new site is being built. How it is now is not how it's staying, the new site hasn't launched yet!

There are some things I'm not able to change with the current site, either because it's not a feature within Squarespace, or that I don't know how, or that I'm not physically able to do it. I've a lot of help currently but there's only so much that can be done for me, and I've got to put what energy I have into the new site.

As I've been converting the free patterns and tutorials to blog posts I've been reformatting the images and making them a much more manageable size, one that doesn't obliterate the screen (Squarespace's focus is photography portfolio style sites). How the blog post layout will change on the new site I'm not sure yet, but as these posts go live later in the month on the current site they will be more readable than recent general posts.

I’m not keen on the large image format either, but it’s only a recent feature. As I went through 15 years worth of blog posts it was really apparent how each platform or website builder differed in their layout options. What I’m aiming to do with the free pattern and tutorial posts is make them more consistent, not just with the image sizing, but also with the layout, language used and so on. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of choice for the layout on the blog of the new site but I don’t know how much we’ll be able to recode old blog posts from the backend, so all of these updates and changes are happening from the frontend, as they need to be done before the site changes over. That’s a lot of work, with roughly 150 posts being updated or rewritten, and all their images reformatted.

Squarespace is a 'what you see is what you get' website builder, meaning a site is built from the front end in a modular way. They're ideal for quick simple sites and for folks who don't know enough to code their own sites from scratch. They have a lot of limitations, though, and I knew when I built the current site 6 years ago that I needed something better for something this size, but I didn't have the know-how to do it myself or the financial means to outsource it. My website has needed rebuilding for some time.

You've talked about Internet accessibility but are removing the free PDFs?

Yes, I have. And yes, the free patterns and free tutorials are changing format. But the PDFs aren't going for good.

I’ve outlined how and where the free content will still be available in PDF format. Ensuring that folks with poor internet access can access my resources is still important to me, we’re just changing how we do it.

The primary reason for this particular change is that when the blog posts are live after the 23rd, any help or support needed can be answered right within the comments. This is important, especially as we’ve lost Ravelry as an accessible central community point; not everyone has a point of support while we wait for the new site to be finished. Even when the new site, with it’s forum, is ready not everyone will want to sign up to ask for help with the free content and the blog posts will be there as an easy support option for folks.

The second main reason for this change are the translations. While the PDFs are hosted as they are, most of them are only available in English, and that’s a problem for tutorial and technique support. A lot of my patterns are available in a number of different languages and they’ll all be hosted on the new site. By having the technique and support articles as blog posts they’ll be included in the language feature of the new site, allowing folks to access the tutorials or articles in their own language. This won’t work so well for the free patterns, and translating those is something we haven’t finalised yet, but for everything else it’ll be especially useful.

I did mention in the newsletter that we're looking at possible options for the blog on the new site, such as ways of enabling a print to PDF option right within the blog post - like a lot of the cooking websites have, where you can print the recipe without all the extra chat or the adverts. This in my mind would be the ideal solution, as it’ll still allow a support point and work with the translations. It also means you'll only download what's needed, and at the same time reduce the storage, fees and bandwidth usage on the site.

The current PDF layout is also pretty static, and isn’t very accessible. For the premium patterns we’ve developed a new accessible template that’s both large print and screenreader friendly. I can’t say at this point whether a print to PDF option within the blog posts will have the same accessibility features, or whether it’ll be keyboard operated, but these features are usually in plain text with little formatting and I’m optimistic that we can make the free content more accessible than it is now.

But I'm not coding the new site and I can't promise how this will all work, if at all, as that's not been sorted out yet. As and when it is, I'll let you know!

Why don’t you just add a bit of code to stop the hotlinking if that’s the problem?

Yes, there are options available for preventing hotlinking and stopping the search engines crawling the files but there isn't a way to do it effectively within my version of Squarespace, or at least not without compromising other areas. Not hosting the PDFs directly is a much cleaner solution and it allows us to consider other options for the new site.

My free patterns and tutorials have been offered as PDFs for over a decade - if the hotlinking was the biggest issue changes would have been made long before now. So yes, its an issue I'll be glad to see the back of but it's not the only area of concern that's driving changes.

Changing how the free patterns and tutorials are presented on my site hasn't been an easy choice at all. Honestly, I'd not be too impressed either with a website pulling all of their PDFs. But please bear in mind that the PDFs aren't going forever from everywhere and that we'll do what we can to find a way to allow them to be saved from the new site. I also appreciate that not everyone is happy to sign up to receive free content but The Woolly Hat Society is free to join, and it provides a good solution for now and a not unreasonable compromise should we not find anything better.

How does all of this affect my patterns?

If you haven't already downloaded a free pattern or PDF then please do so soon, as the files will be removed from my site on the 23rd of January. The new site won't be launching then so we'll be entering a transition stage of sorts.

None of this affects your purchased patterns at all. They're still be in your libraries or accounts, depending on where you've purchased them. This particular change is about the free patterns and tutorials only.

Even when the new site is launched, your purchased patterns won't change then, either.

I've no plans to remove my pattern sales from Ravelry, purely because I can't afford to. I'm not comfortable at all with having my patterns for sale there and should I be at a point in the future when I can afford to change that, they'll all still be searchable on and listed on the Ravelry database.

Why is the new website not ready yet?

OK, this is a huge website! It's something I've been working backend on solidly since July. I've got help from a fantastic group of people with skills way, way beyond mine but I can't afford to pay them all full time and honestly, its not a task to be rushed - some of our best solutions have come about because we're taking our time, because there's been delays.

Yes, there have been delays. It happens. We're all human and did you meet 2020?

Where there's been delays I've done what I can to let folks know, and talk about progress here on this blog, on my Instagram account and in my newsletter. We've picked up pace again and I should have a better idea soon of how some aspects of the new site will look and function.

I’ve been building my own site forever, moving around from one website builder to another for 15 years. That all means that the site is different things patched together and what's been needed is a fresh start. Thousands of images have been re-edited and resized; 15 years worth of pattern and book data has been collected, formatted and edited so that we can organise it all properly for the search function on the new site AND improve all of the information and how it's presented. There's a whole lot of new articles and features that are being developed, too, not to mention new translations, new accessible pattern formats and more.

None of this could happen quickly, even with a limitless budget to throw at it!

We're making these changes in stages, as there's too much for me to manage in one go, and because I don't want there to be any nasty surprises. Sometimes that means that there's a lot to keep track of and I get it, sometimes you just want it done. But we're not a huge team and I'm not a big corporation, rolling these things out in stages is our only way. We can test, take feedback, rethink where we need to.

How do I get the free PDFs while I can?

They’re all still available on the Free Patterns page - each image that has a downwards arrow offers a PDF download, the rest are for patterns hosted off site.

Likewise on the Tutorial pages, look for the images with a downwards arrow to download that particular technique.

All of the current PDFs will be going on the 23rd January, download as many as you wish before then!

———————————————

I’m starting to understand why some folks don’t announce changes, or why they just launch a new website without warning - there’s a lot to explain and of course we can’t please everyone. Sometimes explaining everything means not everyone will read or will skip through, or maybe I might not be as clear as I could be, but I’d rather explain what I can when I can as I’d prefer to keep you in the loop than not. It certainly would be an awful lot easier to not tell you, put it that way!

One of the biggest challenges with a site this big is organising things so that everything works together, and that means the changes we’re making as well. It’s a huge logistical challenge! I suspected this change might not be popular and I wanted to get the news out as soon as I could, but I also hope folks understand that the PDFs aren’t going away forever, and that there are many reasons for taking this step.

You’ll still be able to get all future free content in it’s current PDF layout via The Woolly Hat Society. In the near future, all of the tutorials PDFs as they are will be linked to from all premium patterns (this will roll out over a few months). And if all goes to plan, the current free patterns and tutorials will have a print to PDF from within the blog posts on the new site.

New website and forthcoming changes

I don’t yet have a date for the new website launch, but I promise as soon as I know, you’ll know. I know folks are waiting on it and I’m loathed to keep folks waiting. But at the same time, we’re putting in a heck of a lot of work backend and it’s only going to be better than it was.

I’m treating the new site build as a way to put right a lot of things, as a clean slate. There’s lots of things I’ve wanted to change or provide but have never had the means or ability. Now that it’s being coded in a very different way, we have this chance. And as you’d expect I’m piling up the workload in the want to get it all done!

eta/ there’s a follow up blog post further explaining some of these changes and you can find it here.

One key area that’ll be changing is how I provide the free patterns and tutorials.

In the early days, when knit blogging and indie design was still so fresh, I’d put free patterns and tutorials up as blog posts. Then, about 10 years or so ago I started to convert everything to downloadable PDFs. As someone who’s had the shittiest of internet connection over the last 15 years, running across tutorials that were only available as blog posts, or worse, youtube videos, was a constant exercise in frustration. So I set out to make everything in PDF format so that folks could access, download, and use when it suited them and not rely on an internet connection.

This, though, has worked against me. Despite constantly asking folks To Not link to my PDF files, they did, and drained my bandwidth. This is mighty frustrating as it’s my copyrighted stuff and asking folks to visit my site to get something isn’t such a tall ask. Not to mention that heavy bandwidth use can come at a cost, and I’m not that flush.

Then, the internet crawler bots switched tactic and started linking to stored PDF files that weren’t behind a paywall or password in internet searches. And stopping that has been mighty difficult.

I’ve tried various options, or at least the options that I could code and implement, but no joy. I didn’t want to remove the PDFs as that felt like punishing folks who needed them for other folks’ shitty behaviour. I’ve no doubt the folks who link to my files aren’t aware of the issues they cause, or think it’s no big deal, but those things soon add up.

And of course… having folks coming to my site has other benefits, like website traffic rankings. External link pointing. Blog posts also provide space to offer support and answer questions.

It’s this last point that’s been the biggest factor in changing how I do things. With Raverly inaccessible to many, and with them continually silencing folk who try to speak up about how they’ve marginalised disabled folk and their silence on the whole thing, many of us are rethinking how we provide patterns, tutorials and support. And honestly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I’m proper kicking myself for not being able to build my own forum over a decade ago.

So. This is how things are gonna change.

I’m currently converting tutorials and free patterns back to blog posts. Over the next few weeks, those downloadable PDF files will slowly disappear. Once I have everything in blog posts I’ll delete all the stored files so if you’ve linked to them those links will be broken. Sorry about that, but I did ask you not to do that.

All links internally, and from places like Ravelry, will then link to the blog posts - I can manage some of this but external sites are gonna have to switch things over themselves.

If you need help with a free pattern or tutorial, you’ll be invited to leave a comment and I’ll be able to help right here! I’m looking forward to being able to help folks here again, instead of sending them off to Ravelry.

This isn’t the end of free PDFs, though.

Going forward, all new free patterns and tutorials will still be offered to members of The Woolly Hat Society and Patreon supporters for a short exclusive period.

The Woolly Hat Society is free to join. I do clean the list regularly, as I can’t afford to pay for folks who don’t open or read the newsletters for months on end, but that’s all you need to do to maintain membership - open and read the newsletter! It doesn’t matter if you never buy anything.

Patreon support starts at $1 per month, or there’s a 15% discount if you buy a year’s membership at a time. Patreon supporters get a whole host of other benefits, including exclusive discounts and behind the scenes goings ons. But I know not everyone can afford that, so joining the club is recommended.

Going forward (so, so many changes going forward) the tutorial PDFs will also be linked within premium pattern PDFs for support. For a whole host of reasons I’ll be dropping the illustrated tutorials from patterns and after much thought and discussion, have decided that the best way to replace them is to have links to PDFs within the pattern that you can download if you need to.

This isn’t going to be a small task, but the illustrated tutorials will remain in the premium patterns until I switch them out. In the transition period, if you need extra help beyond those pattern tutorials, you’ll find what you need on the website - I’ll be changing the links in the Tutorial pages so that they point to the blog posts.

As I say, the reasons for this are many. I’ve primarily been looking at ways to reduce the file size of my patterns. As they are now, they’re formatted for when I offered print wholesale. Including the illustrated tutorials meant I could offer a neat package of pattern+technical support.

I don’t offer wholesale anymore, which means my DPI, page count and space constraints have gone.

The tutorials I offer here have always been more indepth than those in the patterns (‘cos space) and they cover a wider range, too (‘cos logistics). And I’ve heard from many folks to say that a) they either know the technique well because they knit a lot of my patterns so don’t need it or b) they pop to my website or search the internet if the included tutorial doesn’t answer their question.

So… the illustrated tutorials for the most part are no longer serving their purpose. Patterns will still include support, that’s not going away! It’ll just be done differently.

And that’s ok. It gives me a chance to think and adapt. Things change.

In summary…

• Future free patterns and free tutorials will be available in PDF format for a period of exclusivity to members of The Woolly Hat Society and Patreon supporters. When that exclusivity period is over, they’ll be available on the website as blog posts.

• Premium patterns will all be updated to include direct download links to tutorial PDFs. This will be the only way existing tutorial PDFs can be accessed after the next month or so.

• The current PDFs - free patterns + free tutorials - will be disappearing from this website in the next few weeks.

Right, that’s me done I think? If something’s not clear, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

I’m off now to make something of new years’ eve - take care out there!

Where we're at with the website build

There’s so much been going on backend that I thought I’d record a video update. I’ve posted this to my Instagram account for IGTV and there’s automated captioning within the app, and I’ve also uploaded it to my YouTube channel, too.

There’s a lot going on. A Lot.

I hope you’re able to watch it!

The new website build - the plans!

We’re working away backend here getting as much as possible ready for the new website - sorting pattern data, making sure every pattern text is edited, consistent and complete. Getting all of the images optimised and resized and relabelled. Collecting all of the URLs of every pattern on every platform. Considering which tags to use and collating the data around those but also sorting it in such a way so that we can add or change the tags. With a back catalogue the size of mine, this is no small task. I’ve got help, it’s not a task I could do alone. And I’m pretty excited about bringing all the data together like this - it’s going to make everything so much easier going forward.

We’ve a master spreadsheet that I’ve nicknamed the ‘monster master’ and looking through it and seeing it all come together is quite the incentive to keep going.

To clear something up - I sent out a newsletter to members of The Woolly Hat Society last week with an exclusive promotion to welcome in the cart. Some folks seem to have taken that to mean that this is the new website, and I want to reiterate that it very much isn’t! There’s lots of things I like about this website but there’s lots that needs changing, primarily the search function and the categories. So if you’re finding that something isn’t working for you, please leave a comment about what would work, but know that things are changing and will be improving.

So, the current plans.

The search function on this site is shite, but it’s a Squarespace feature that I can’t seem to do much to improve. I hate it. So, that’s going to be massively overhauled. I want to make it so that folks can search patterns via needle sizes or techniques - whether that be lace, cables, sideways or grafting. I don’t know yet just how refined I can make that search (I’m not the developer; you’ll be glad to hear that I’m hiring in a pro) but we’re doing the work backend to enable as much as possible. It’s definitely going to be searchable by pattern name and the categories I have now, which will already be an improvement on the current search feature.

How the drop down menu categories are presented isn’t set in stone yet, so we’ve some flexibility on that. I kinda think that the key construction techniques and yarn weights will be a firm fixture but I’m sure the developer knows ways of doing this that I don’t even know exist. One thing that’s always frustrated me with this website (and it’s the same with all Squarespace sites) is the lack of nested folders - i.e. the menu navigation inside the drop down menu, or lack of - it means I have to present categories or groups of similar patterns in a pretty rigid format, and it also means I have to add each page to that categories menu manually. I’m looking forward to having this gone and something built to our needs in it’s place.

Another thing that I’m really excited about is presence of a forum. Our own forum! I’ve always wanted one, as I find them one of the most useful ways to provide pattern support, help folks with their knitting and keep our community connected. It’s a place to actually talk and have conversations. I’ve never had the skills to build one (or the option, with Squarespace) or the funds to pay someone to custom build something, and everyone always seemed to prefer using Ravelry. That’s all changed now and I do have the funds and we can build our corner of the internet just as we like it.

The forum will be connected to the account feature… and the account feature will be there as the cart feature will be have a massive overhaul. It won’t be me outsourcing the uploads to another service like I’ve always done. (I can’t even remember the name of the eCommerce plug-in that I used on my very first site, which was a Mr Site site, in the days before Ravelry existed - it’s been that long). Being VAT registered now has opened up more options for me but I don’t know just yet which payment processor options I have beyond Paypal.

And…. we will have our own online teaching platform. I’m proper excited about this! Not a platform that’s a plug-in or connected to Teachable or any other platform, but a way to take part in the online workshops I’ll be offering right here on the new site. Support will be available via the forum, you’ll be able to buy online workshops at the same time that you buy patterns or eBooks or anything else I’ll be offering (the great thing about moving away from a Ravelry cart is that I’ll be able to offer digital products that don’t fit the Ravelry database). I’ve had to delay launching my online classes for a few reasons (more than our fair share of technical difficulties coupled with the need to deal with the NuRav fallout) but I am really excited to bring in this aspect. The classes will have PDF handouts to go with the video classes; they’ll have subtitles and we’ll be offering them in a growing number of languages, too.

And following on from that, the new site will have a language toggle come search feature. One thing I’m keen to do is to make sure that when a language is selected, it doesn’t just translate the whole site… some platforms do this and it’s endlessly frustrating when folks buy my patterns thinking they’re in the language that the platform has auto-translated to, even though I add a note stating which languages they’re available in. So selecting a language will make the forum and blog posts and general information pages available in that language, but it will only bring up the product pages for products available in the selected language.

The translations have slowed since the start of the pandemic, partially because I’ve needed to be a little more cautious with the budget and move things around, and partially because time has taken on a whole other meaning to just about everyone. Understandably, working to a schedule seems even harder now that folks have more things to juggle and more needs to consider. But once the new website is launched I’m hoping to have the headspace to start outsourcing more and languages are a priority.

The other priority in terms of formats is screen-reader/large print formats. I’ve still more research to do on this but it is something we’ll be making space for in the new website so that once I can offer specific patterns that meet the requirements for each, they’ll be easily found.

OK, so there’s a lot going on! And mostly right now it’s about collating and organising the data so that it fits into various tag systems and is all searchable, edited and consistent. It’s not a huge mess but it’s a big back catalogue so even a small mess is pretty time consuming.

Now is the time for us to take onboard suggestions and listen to ideas, so please do let me know if there’s something we’re missing. Aesthetically we’ll be working with an accessible template and generally keeping within the same style as this site (colour scheme, graphics and such) but again, there’s room for change and getting things right before we get a month into the project is the way I’d prefer to go! We’ll be using Wordpress, and there’s so, so many options available to us.

So please do comment on features you’d like, concerns you may have. I’m getting professional help and they know more than I do, but I will take anything you have to say to them.

(I’m sure I’ve missed something - there are lots of plans, lots going on!)