Testing a Pattern on Ravelry: A Newbies Experience

Okay, I'll be honest this was a very scary process for me because I am new to designing patterns. Throughout my knitting and crocheting years, I've made up my own patterns like I'm sure many of you have but it was never official to the point where I felt confident enough to put it out into the world. So to have finally had a pattern tested by someone, I want to share with you my experience.

The first thing I did was go on to Ravelry and log in. I went to the group's tab and searched "Free Pattern Testers". Then I went on the group and joined, after joining the group, I read all of their rules. I was kind of confused because I didn't understand a lot of what they were talking about. So I went to some testing call discussions and read some of theirs, I tried to make sense of what I needed to do.

I had been working on the crochet hat pattern Road Runner since April and I was going through the motions with trying to get that perfect and now I had to figure out how to get the hat tested. So I went to the pages section of the group and clicked on Request Template and read it over and over again. I wanted everything to go perfect the first time (boy was I kidding myself).

I went to google docs, copy and pasted the template then I filled out all in information pertaining to the hat pattern. I had to sign up for a website to be able to link photos to a post. So I went on Imgur and Flickr. I posted the testers call and I got my first person to want to test the hat for me. But then my post was locked because my test request didn't conform with the request template. So then I learned about The Lab

After I got my request corrected in the Lab, I repasted it into the thread I made and then waited for more testers. Once I got the testers I followed the instructions and sent them the email with the pattern in PDF format.

There were so many things that I learned, like for example:

1. You have to be specific about what type of yarn you used for a project.

2. Make sure to comprehend what the testers send you before you reply to be able to answer them correctly.

3. Keep track of who's who.

The Testers sent me things that needed to be corrected in the pattern and I am so grateful to them because I was able to make the pattern as perfect as it was gonna get as a beginner pattern designer.
They sent in progress pictures aka WIPS (Works In Progress), I feel in love with their work it's such a beautiful and fulfilling moment to see your idea come to life and be made by someone else following your instructions.

I had problems with sizing the hat pattern. I wanted the pattern to be inclusive and be from a newborn to adult large. But I didn't know how to write the pattern to be able to do that. So for the first 2 days, I struggled to try to figure out sizing and I made so many hats in one day. With the mistakes the testers brought to my attention I updated the pattern and resent it out so that they could see if I had made it any better.

The hat kept coming out in a bigger size than wanted, At this point, I was frustrated and felt like giving up. I thought " Maybe I should just, calm down and test for others for a bit before I start designing my own patterns". But then I said, " after all the time I spent making this, I am going to finish it to the end if it fails at least I tried and completed one of my 2019 goals". I decided to keep going and work with the testers to figure out what I needed to do to get the sizing right. They were so nice and really gave me great advice, They were patience to the very end and I really appreciate that.

One tester brought to my attention that most designers don't have hats in multiple sizes like I was trying to do and I should just stick to the original pattern and make a size Large. I'm not gonna lie I was a little mad hearing this because of how many times I redid the original pattern and how many hats I had made trying to figure out the sizing, just to go back to the original pattern I made. But I learned a lesson from this and that's, Sometimes we get too excited and overwhelm ourselves, we stray from the original plan but in the end, we always end up going back to the original design. So I redid the pattern yet again lol and resent it out.

The Testers began to send in their finished project photos and survey. I marked them as completed in the thread and flagged the thread to be closed. I closed my eyes, took a big breath and exhaled. I had finally completed one part of the journey.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have more questions about my experience testing a pattern for the first time please comment below.

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