Friday, November 9, 2012

To pattern, or not to pattern....

So yesterday I just sat in my spot on the couch and crocheted. All Day. Which was apparently what I needed.

In the meantime, I sorta "designed" some slippers. And I might take that opportunity to, like, post them on Ravelry.

Which is something I've never done before. The whole posting them on Ravelry bit. I make my own stuff all the time, but I've never really ever written them up and posted them as an official PATTERN for actual other people. This time, I knew what I wanted, and there were no other patterns that even came CLOSE to what i wanted to make. Paid or free.

Basically I wanted to crochet myself some granny squares, and sew them together in such a way as to cover my feet. I've seen patterns like that before, but they've always been the sorts of granny squares where there were a lot of holes in the squares (classic granny squares). But needing warm slippers doesn't translate to having holes in the squares. I've been crocheting granny squares for over a decade, and I know there's a lot of modern granny square modified patterns that don't have a lot of holes. The second thing I remember from seeing these older patterns was that they were VERY sixties or seventies in their overall look - think orange and brown acrylic. I wanted nice contemporary granny square slippers.

So it took me a few hours to put together the first one, what with figuring out sizing and how to put the squares together to get around my foot. And when it was sewed together it looked sorta silly, a weird shape. But once it went on my foot? Oh heavenly Bob. Perfect. It's the most perfect slipper EVER. Bonus that I made it with my favorite yarn in all yarndom, squishy Malabrigo, which is 100% wool and so warm. The second slipper worked up in about an hour and a half, no kidding. Maybe less, but I was watching Nick Nickleby from the BBC, and I kept getting distracted.

So here's my conundrum  Do I put this up as a paid pattern? As I said, I've never done that before. If i did it as a free pattern, I'd fill out some info on a page on Ravelry, and then link it back to a website/blog page where i could post my pattern for everyone to use. As a free pattern, standards can be lower - I've never really written out patterns for anyone but myself, and if it's free, I have the whole "i'm new at this, be nice to me" excuse if they aren't very clear.

But if it's a paid pattern, I'd have to do things like: figure out how to link my palpal account to Ravelry, make sure the pattern is PERFECT as written, take REALLY good pictures of the finished product, figure out modifications for different sizes, fill out a LOT of Ravelry stuff that I am completely ignorant of, make the pattern a PDF file, which i have NO CLUE how to do, and probably the hardest, figure out how much i want to charge.

Slipper patterns run the full spectrum of prices, the ones that were similar in technique (but not quite what I wanted) were anywhere from 3.50 to a mind boggling 6 dollars. I have no intention of charging 6 dollars for my pattern. I don't know that I could charge 3.50 for my pattern. I probably could charge that much if it was VERY well laid out in a pdf file, with good pictures and good pattern language. I'd need to find someone to test knit it for me. If i charged 3.00 for the pattern, four sales would pay for a month of Netflix.

I have nothing else to do this weekend. I suppose I should give it a shot.



2 comments:

  1. I convert files to pdf's at work all the time through photoshop. If you don't have that & do decide to market your pattern just email me the doc & I'll convert it for you.

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    Replies
    1. omg, I might take you up on that.

      My other idea was to, uh, **coff** "acquire" photoshop. **arg, shiver me timbers**

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