This is my (Robynn’s) Ravelry home page. It’s not the home page (what you’d see if you click on the icon, top left) – that would show you the Rav blog, and some helpful links for newbies; but I point my bookmark to the forums, and specifically to these groups, because these are the discussions I like to keep tabs on every time I check in. You might notice that none of them are the “Big 7” forums that every Raveller belongs to as default. Those are great, but I don’t need to watch them regularly (and honestly… because they’re so active, they can be pretty distracting). I belong to a large number of groups and I’ve arranged them in five different tabs, but these are the most important ones. Top left is the group I co-host with Emily, to discuss our designs. It’s not the most active, but it is friendly and most important, it’s a really useful space to announce new releases, run tests and so on. Then Designers and Budding Designers are the super-valuable groups we keep harping on about, and below I’ll show you some of the reasons why. The other groups you see there are useful for keeping an eye on new Rav developments and such, and below that (out of screenshot) I have some of my favourite social groups.

I could easily rabbit on for ages about the forums, but will try to focus on the key points. First: use the groups. There are groups for so many special interests – everything from Harry Potter to local knitting groups (or shops) to dyers and designers to parenting or feminism to particular styles of knitting… Finding a group you feel at home in can be a deeply wonderful experience, but as a designer, the main thing is to get to know groups that are relevant to your designs. For instance, groups for shawl lovers, or colourwork. Those groups can be a rich source of market research, not to mention sales. But here’s the second point: don’t be gross. As indie designers, we are incredibly lucky to have a community of customers who are genuinely eager to learn about our work, but nobody appreciates a hard sell – especially coming from someone who doesn’t participate in chat but just jumps in among a bunch of strangers to push their patterns. We’ll talk more about appropriate behaviour much later on, in the marketing topic, but basically, just remember to be considerate. Join groups to get to know what your customers want, and maybe to chat with them; promote your designs there using targeted ads, and (depending on the group’s rules) to announce new patterns in the appropriate thread. Don’t be pushy. But do take the time to find your audience.

And definitely take the time to get to know the two designers groups. Both are welcoming and supportive, full of detailed information and advice, but for a newbie, BD is definitely the better one to ask questions in. Spend some time browsing the archives (and resource pages) in both, though. You’ll learn a lot. One thing to bear in mind: both groups are home to plenty of non-designer lurkers – people who enjoy hearing about what designers do behind the scenes, without wanting to design themselves. This is great, because they occasionally pipe up to give a customer’s perspective (so helpful!), and because they follow the monthly New Designs threads. But remember they’re reading, and consider how you want to present yourself.

Note the two ringed links in the above screenshot – patterns, and “my designs”. Besides the groups, those are core features to understand.

The database

Ravelry’s complex, user-generated database of yarns, patterns and projects is enormously powerful and enormously valuable to anyone in the industry, because of the interconnections between those elements. As a casual user, you can search for project ideas by checking what others have made with the yarn in your stash; or what yarns have been used to make that pattern you’re eyeing up; or you can look at FOs for a particular design to see how it looks on a body closer to your own shape than the model’s. For designers, all of those uses are great, but you need to particularly understand the pattern database.

The advanced pattern search lets users filter by (many!) factors including yarn weight, yarn quantity, item category, fabric characteristics and a host of design elements, from construction (flat? seamless? top-down?) to neckline shape – so be sure to add all that detail when uploading your pattern. You can also use this search in the design planning stage: for instance, to get a rough idea of how much shawl a skein of a particular yarn might make. (Of course you need to swatch and weigh to know for sure, but this is a handy starting point.) Or to see if your brilliant idea has already been done ten times over. (But remember, originality is overrated.) And definitely to check if your perfect name turns up five pages of results…

The pattern database can also be viewed in order of recent popularity, or the (in)famous “Hot Right Now” pages. Visit this page with care: it can be demoralising, if you feel it’s being dominated by a particular aesthetic and a handful of top designers; and it’s easy to get sucked into checking where your newest release is on that list. (The flurry of activity that goes with a launch often pushes new patterns up the rankings for a day or two.) HRN isn’t necessarily a good indication of a pattern’s success in the long run. But it is interesting to view as a trend snapshot – and I find it helpful as inspiration for pattern styling.

Beyond that, you need to understand how your own patterns appear. I know that as a customer, I always check user projects (look along that row of tabs at the top) to see how the design looks in different yarns and on different bodies. So do what you can to boost those project numbers – test knitters are great for this. I also like to feature my favourite customer projects alongside my own photos (as I’ve done here), to highlight the pattern’s versatility, but many designers prefer to keep a tight rein on the page’s aesthetic by only using their own photos. There’s no one right way.

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