Ten years of endlessly writing crochet patterns.

I seem to be constantly writing patterns, I have a big list to work through, for example at the moment I have 6 old patterns to be revamped, 3 secret blanket patterns and 5 unmade designs that I need to work on. It can take me anything up to 6 weeks to write a pattern so you can understand just how long its going to take me to work through them all and why my patterns might seem expensive.

The queue is endless and exhausting, as soon as I've finished one I move straight onto the next one.
While endlessly drawing charts I have time to think and have realised that I've been writing crochet patterns for over 10 years. In the very early days my patterns were very simple and not very informative, they contained a photo, motif chart and written instructions.
I've come a long way since then, not only have my blanket designs developed and got better so have my patterns.
I want to make them as beautiful and easily understandable as possible.
I thought I'd write this blog post to show you how far I've come :-)

I still make my blankets using very simple basic stitches (ch, dc/sc, htr/hdc, tr/dc dtr/tr), I think of my motifs as jigsaw pieces, so need to keep them simple or the finished look of the blanket will be blurry. I'm too lazy to learn complex stitches and the basics make the effect I want, plus I don't want newbies to be scared off.
The stitches haven't changed, they are still the ones I used 10 years ago, but everything else has.

As my blankets have very complex colour layouts I now include detailed colour information about the palette and yarns  I use. 

Most of my patterns include swatches of the colour used, so if you can't find the right yarn you can use the swatches to find a similar colour.

The patterns now include information on joining sewing in ends and more recently how to keep your colours in the right order

My motif patterns are written in UK and US terms and all of them have charts and stitch abbreviations, also in UK and US terms.
The charts have developed and become more professional, in the early days they were hand draw with a mouse, believe it or not the one below is actually one of the better ones.

20092017 

I draw complex numbered colour charts to show you exactly which colours are used in each motif, which correspond to a layout chart, these charts can take 6 or 7 days to draw.

(Florence)

Then I break down the chart into step by step charts, showing you where to start and what to do next.

  

(Kaleidoscope)

There can be as many as 9 or 10 steps on the more complex patterns.

All the motifs have a colour key, telling you which colour to use for each round for the corresponding motif on the chart.

Also included are instructions for finishing.

And finally sometimes I include a couple of colour variations.

(Secret blanket due to be published in the autumn.)

And to think in the old days, all I did was photograph, write and just do a motif chart....:-)

If you fancy buying a piece of my hard work you can find my patterns all on Ravelry, don't forget I am running a Ravelry Summer Sale .

Happy crocheting

Love Amanda 

Back to Photoshop for some more chart drawing....sigh.....