Hi there,
I got a Ravelry message once from a guy who invited me to a group for people in the region I lived in at that time. So I checked this guy out (as you do) and noticed he had patterns for sale. Curious, I went to his store and saw a basic hat pattern and a basic baby sock pattern.
I couldn’t believe my eyes: The simplest shapes of the most basic accessories - and he wanted money for the patterns. Even worse - there were projects for these designs, so there are people who might have paid the money.
I was quite angry. I’m still a bit angry. How dare he *sell* these basic patterns (since then I found a lot of plain vanilla sock patterns, some of them for sale as well). Yes, obviously the patterns contain important information for people who never knitted a hat or baby socks. But come on, there are free resources for that.
My anger is bigger than the “offence” warrants, I give you that. But why?
Easy: I was/am jealous that some guy - who didn’t even have that much knitting experience at that point - just published a pattern and valued his work enough to sell it instead of giving it away.
You might agree with me that in this instance this was a bit over-confident but it is a general problem.
Let’s stay with me, shall we? I have quite exact ideas of what I want and I have friends who are the same. We all work under the assumption that when it comes to knitting, I can do anything. And mostly I find a solution - even when my brother asks me for a blanket-like something they can put around a child in a sling with integrated closures or a friend wants a scarf with an integrated hood.
When friends asked me whether I would publish a pattern for something like the above I would reply: “It’s nothing special. I just did this thing and added that thing and everyone can do it. Nobody needs a pattern for that.”
But here is the thing: There are a lot of knitters who feel better when following a pattern, they don’t want to do their own thing. They have the knowledge and experience but lack the confidence or the willingness to develop their own pattern.
So if you have, like me, an idea for a design but think that nobody would be interested because it’s easy (for you!), try it. Write the pattern down, go through the development process and publish the pattern. There are always people who didn’t have the ideas and don’t know how to find solutions constructionwise. They will be grateful for it.
Value your time and work and take money for the pattern - it doesn’t have to be too much (I saw a tank top pattern without variations offered for $20 - which might be a bit too ambitious). But people tend to value things which cost money more than free things too.
Men are much more confident in this regard and women need to catch up!
So, tell me about a design you ended up not publishing because you thought it wasn’t worth it. I promise to tell you about another one I didn’t mention in this email in return :-)
Talk soon,
Frauke x
P.S.: Do you feel your design ideas are nothing special and everyone could do it? Do you end up not publishing something because of that? Go for it, see it as an experiment: Write it up and publish it. See what happens - and don’t forget to value your time, work and expertise by selling it, not giving it away for free.