And there’s no way to tell until after you buy them! In the yarn shop days you could read a pattern, paper, book, or magazine, before purchasing. Shop owners made recommendations. There’s a reason the quality was higher. - ThreadSky

maximummary.bsky.social • 38 days ago

And there’s no way to tell until after you buy them!

In the yarn shop days you could read a pattern, paper, book, or magazine, before purchasing. Shop owners made recommendations. There’s a reason the quality was higher.

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jacqhammer.bsky.social•37 days ago

But really. I'm uninterested in paying good money for shitty patterns, which definitely stops me from supporting new-to-me designers unless there are a good number of projects with commentary on the pattern.

maximummary.bsky.social•37 days ago

Honestly, I’ve pretty much stopped buying patterns. I know my body and can knit basic sweaters that fit it. I’ve wasted so much money on patterns that would take more effort to rewrite to fit me/be something I can follow that I hate throwing good money after
bad.

jacqhammer.bsky.social•37 days ago

I love a great pattern and will buy great patterns all day every day for... Everything because I'm not interested in self-drafting. But it is why I tend to stick to limited designers. I'm challenging myself to branch out this year.

maximummary.bsky.social•37 days ago

I start with the Ann Budd Handy Books. I know my adjustments from there. I’m plus size and got serious about knitting back when the largest size was usually 40 or 42, so I’ve always been self drafting.

I’m a knitter and I don’t like this idea of shopping as a creative act.

maximummary.bsky.social•37 days ago

That said, I did just buy Petiteknit’s Sophie Scarf. It’s basic, but looking at the pictures, the ends of the scarf are neat. The sloppy ends of so many scarves annoy me so I paid the money.

maximummary.bsky.social•37 days ago

I was enrolled in the RISD hand knitting design program before they killed it. I did the math and realized that there was no way the money made sense. And that was over a decade ago. The woman who ran it admitted almost no one was a full time knitwear designer. Always a side gig. Small market.

jacqhammer.bsky.social•37 days ago

And sometimes the designers are prolific and extremely popular and their patterns are still poorly written 😬

maximummary.bsky.social•37 days ago

One of the interesting things that came up in the Reddit threads was that tester knitters are often advanced knitters who are doing it for the free pattern, see patterns as more of a guideline anyway, and are thus not doing the double checking that test knitting is allegedly supplying.

jacqhammer.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yes! Sure,*I* know how to manipulate a pattern to do what it should/what I need, but I'm not a new knitter. I know several test knitters who can and will do both - read and provide feedback from a new knitter perspective AND provide feedback on how they changed it to work.

maximummary.bsky.social•37 days ago

And if it’s friends or *community* then it’s probably people who know that designer’s “quirks,” and also not people likely to give useful feedback.

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