First draft
It worked. I finished my first draft Friday afternoon and sent the PDF to a couple of friends for feedback. In the meantime I have already spotted a major omission: the yarn quantity. How could I have missed that? I wasn’t sure of the amount of yarn I had used and kept putting off the estimate until I forgot and was reminded only when I started reading the rules of the Free Testers group on Ravelry. In addition to the guidelines for posting, they have many useful pages to help designers write their patterns. But really, to leave out the quantities?
Finding faults with everything
Another thing I have to specify when I post to the group to find testers for my scarf is an estimate of the time it takes to complete the project. Clueless again; I wasn’t keeping track while I was knitting and figuring things out at the same time.
While I wait to hear from my friends I am working on refining the layout for legibility and to reduce the number of pages. The one thing I thought I didn’t need to revise were the charts, and then I read this great post about charts (thanks Bethany!) that is making me think of useful tweaks. At some point I’ll have to stop futzing.
Posted by Francesca | 1 comments
Alyssa
I use FPT too, and truthfully the amount of time it takes only matters if it’s 15 hours or more – if it’s less than that, then testers can take on two different tests. If it’s more than that, than testers can only take on one test at a time. So, if you’re two or three or 4 hours off, it doesn’t really matter too much… except you’ll probably have more volunteers for shorter projects. I would look at the other patterns that are up to get a general idea. Hats, fingerless gloves, toys, and single socks (if testers are only required to make one sock) are usually less than 15 hours.
Good luck! :)