Hi guys! I just created an account on this site and would like some advice from people on Ribblr.
I’ve been crocheting for a very long time but never released my own pattern! I have one already written down in ribblr, but need a few tips before I can release it.
My first pattern will be for a Jake the Dog amigurumi. I need a little advice on some things:
What in your opinion makes a “paid” crochet pattern worth it?
Would I have benefit on this website in publishing free patterns? How do “follower only” patterns work?
How do I pick testers on this site?
Do you find better luck finding testers on this site vs instagram or other social media?
Really any advice for me would be great. Thank you so much.
i’ve not released a pattern as i’m also curious about the process and i’d like to hear some answers too. i can try to answer from what i’ve learned
not too sure but i would say if the pattern is completely yours and written by you. also if it has a lot of appeal to people, and it’s cheap, they’d more likely buy it((my opinion))
i think the benefits from releasing free patterns is that you sorta build up a repertoire in the community ((honestly i can’t speak from experience idk))follower exclusive patterns will make people follow your shop so they can gain access to the pattern. good for starting a following.
you can hold pattern tests on ribblr and people will apply and then you can go through their makes or look at the karma points or just give anyone a chance. you can choose anyone, new or experienced, it’s up to you.
i’m really not sure as i don’t use instagram but since it’s a app for anything and ribblr is a app for crochet/knitting, i’m not sure honestly. it kinda depends on what you look for in a tester but a lot of people on ribblr would be crocheters rather than just random people on instagram ykwim?
not sure i could help much but i hope you find some answers i haven’t released patterns so i can’t tell you my experience
I’m also decently new here, but I’ll try to answer the questions in how I do/think about things; hopefully some of it helps you!
“What in your opinion makes a “paid” crochet pattern worth it?”
-As a designer, I’m going by the complexity of things and how long the pattern took to create. If it’s very simple, I’ll make it a free pattern, if it’s not, I’ll make it a paid pattern. It’s up to you and how you feel about it! What people paying for patterns look for is going to be different for every person, but I’d guess people would be more willing to pay for a more complex pattern than a simpler one that they could potentially free-hand. That said, there might also be people willing to pay for “simpler” patterns just so they don’t need to free-hand it; as I said, it’s going to be different for every person.
“Would I have benefit on this website in publishing free patterns? How do “follower only” patterns work?”
-Well, “followers only” patterns are there so only followers of your shop can access them for free. There are multiple reasons why you might want to do that–to gain followers to your store, which probably means your pattern will be used more times and you can feel good that others enjoy your patterns, you can do it for goodwill, or as a way to get followers to your store, increasing the pool of people who might see and purchase a future pattern from you. There are probably more reasons, but I’m guessing the three above are the most common ones.
“How do I pick testers on this site?”
-The technical side of things has already been explained through screenshots, but if your test gets a lot of applicants, it can be hard to choose between who you want to test it or not. There are some forum posts here that you can read if you want to know what others look for in testers. When you’ve done a tester call and gotten some applicants, you can go to your “shop manager”, click to expand the view of the pattern up for testing, and approve or deny applicants from there.
“Do you find better luck finding testers on this site vs instagram or other social media?”
-I’m not a social butterfly by any means, and my Instagram is almost as new as my account here. So I haven’t used any other social media to find testers. Instagram has made it quite hard to discover
newer accounts (or low-follower accounts), so to get tester applicants there you’d likely need a bigger following already. Here there’s a special place for tester calls, and applying to one is very easy, so my (somewhat biased) view is that it’s much easier to get testers here rather than on Insta or another platform that isn’t made while thinking about this craft or have a community tab that works as well as this one does.
Those are my two cents, anyway. I hope they helped!
Thank you for your reply! That all makes sense. This was super helpful for me, I really love the community feature of this site and how nice all the replies are ^^ On social media, I used to be really active on instagram in 2020 and had a good following then but now getting back into it, none of my posts are pushed into people’s feeds. So definitely looks way easier to get testers and a community here.
Yeah, I’m not going to lie–I’m actually quite annoyed with Instagram I’ve tried searching for hashtags so many times, but instead of recent posts you get “top posts”; a tiny amount of posts with thousands of likes and views or what-not. You just get shown the same things and the same accounts over and over rather than finding new, interesting accounts, and you can’t just scroll down to see more. I searched for a way to be able to see recent posts, but apparently they disabled that feature a year or so ago.
Sorry for the rambly post, but the above actually annoys me so much. I hope you find your place here
Oh, and I’m glad you found the post helpful! Let me know if I can help with anything else
Yeah insta posts don’t even show up in chronological order- what’s up with that?? It’s like every update the past 10 years just makes it worse and worse.
I appreciate it!! My only other question is can you update your pattern as your testers give you feedback? Would they see any change or will they be given a copy that cannot be altered?
Yes, you can update it while your testers have access to it You’ll see a gear icon underneath the pattern and when you click it, you’ll see “edit on Ribbuild”. Click on it, change what you need to change and when you exit it, it automatically saves (to everyone’s pattern)
Oh, I just remembered something about making and releasing free patterns; I think I read somewhere that Ribblr is testing a new feature where they divide the royalties they get from ads or such on free patterns between the designers (if I remember correctly, don’t quote me on this). I hope we’ll see that in the future, and if we do, it’s another reason to make more free patterns
Invmy opinion a paid pattern for me makes it worth it bcs your getting an amazing pattern in return abovs the designer also gets money and if you have made a pattern that is really rare and can only be found by one person (you) then if someone really badly wants it its their only option,
You would benefit by having only free patterns as you would get people that like your patterns becasue theyre free and then would maybe suggest your patterns to other people and it would get the word out also you would gain alot of followers from them as people love free patterns and would love to keep getting them
For follower only patterns te pattern is free but if someone wants to purchase it they have to follow you so its also a good way of getting more followers
For testing on this site once you have written up the pattern in your shop you click on the clipboard icon on the patterns front then choose the option “post a tester call” this will automaticlly take you to the testing zone and will add the photo and the option for people to press it if they want to test, then all you have to do is write what you want to add so like the duedate what materials to use, if theres any yarn requirements, to see how many testers have applied go to your shop then click see shop mananger in the top right then switch to testing it will then show a list of all tour patterns that are currently in the testing stage, click on the pattern you want to see and it will come up of a list of all the people that have applied with an option to reject or accept each one as a tester, it will also say __ karma, karma points are given when a person completes a test, they are given 1 karma point, so if someone has 40 karma points then you know theyre trustworthy and are able yo finish patterns in time, if someone has 0 karma its either bcs they are new to the app, havnt tested before or never finish tests for patterns,
I find better luck testing on here as it makes groupchats for you and its a very simple process, sometimes for my small patterns i get like 30-40 people apply,
Hope this helps and feel free to ask about anymore queations x
Paid stuff just depends on peoples’ tastes. I’ve learned that photography and display skills are pretty important to make your product look exciting and worthwhile. And I’m pretty sure that if people had special connections with tv show or video game characters, they would be more interested in amigurumi versions of them. You won’t believe how much my older brother offered to pay for a Little Big Planet crochet Swoop.
I think Ribblr could use more video and tv show amigurumi stuff anyways.
I think just in case (or to have a wider range of bragging rights), you should make patterns on Ribblr because either way, it’s organized and you can always download your patterns straight from Ribblr and sell them elsewhere.
After you’ve set up Stripe, you can start selling your patterns from Ribblr. While you’re deciding how much you want to to be in the price area after you press (…) on the pattern from your shop, you can also decide wether or not you want your pattern to be for followers or not. Then you can publish the pattern.
I can’t really answer the tester question as I’ve only posted a tester pattern but haven’t actually done anything about it yet, but I’ll make sure to let you know if the rest of the community hasn’t already answered you, because as long as i’ve been on Ribblr, I only noticed the community button from the home website just about two weeks ago.
Also, I like your profile picture. It reminds me of slugcats.
A word of caution when it comes to characters from media (video games, tv etc) is that they’re copyrighted, and if the company which owns the copyright decides to sue you, they could because you’re essentially stealing their character’s design. Disney has sued for that, even small businesses. As soon as something is created, it has automatic copyrights, no matter if it’s text, characters, artwork, music, etc. Some companies are more lenient when it comes to fan art, but especially companies that sell their own prints and plushies etc might come down hard on you, even if you’re small.
So if you plan on making money by making patterns of famous characters that look like the characters from a movie, game etc, you need to be prepared that legal consequences can come up in the future.
That might also be why you don’t see many of these figures!
If your art is different enough, it can pass as derivative work (I think that’s what they call it) and that’s more safe. But this isn’t legal advice, it’s more warning to be cautious about it.
There’s a lot of information out there that you can read about–just to be on the safe side.
oops i forgot about copywrite thanks but I guess I could still do custom orders on my little black market (family/friends asking me to make stuff but me not ending up publishing the patterns)
Hi welcome to Ribblr and congrats on your first post! I hope you enjoy it here, by now you probably already have an idea but just in case I thought to add my own two cents as well (That is a very cute Jake!) Also consider looking through the help center (feel free to click it here as it automatically links to it ) or searching through the community with keywords if you ever want/need immediate answers
What in your opinion makes a “paid” crochet pattern worth it?
For me personally it’s a pattern that’s understandable, readable, complex may or may not have photos and is very clear in the intro what is and isn’t allowed with the pattern and makes from it and preferably has been tested so I know it’s actually a good pattern and not something I won’t be able to make
Would I have benefit on this website on publishing free patterns?
It depends on what you consider benefits, it’s a good way for users to get to understand how you write patterns. I often look through a designers shop to see if they have a free pattern before I purchase a pattern to see if I’ll be able to understand how they write it up.
It also helps with your self-promo as it gives you more of a chance to post in the community and spread your shop and it’s patterns, free patterns could generate more people looking into your shop for more and see a paid pattern they never saw before and getting that as well
I also believe Ribblr added a new thing about ads in free patterns I can’t recall if the designers got some of that money as well, it was during a month drop if I find it I can link it back here in this comment
Edit: here’s the link to it
How do “follower only” pattern work?
Shops have this option for users to follow, what it basically means is you can only get the pattern if you follow the shop, however it’s worth noting it’s easy to just follow, get the pattern and unfollow so follower only patterns may or may not be a good way to get followers
Having followers gives you the option to do a giveaway right here on Ribblr for those following your shop with no extra steps needed!
It’s important to note that followers don’t really boost your chance of anything (like getting noticed like one would in Instagram/etc as there’s no algorithms here) people follow just to get notified that a new pattern was released and to see your little story on the home page (stories were also apart of a Ribblr month drop it’s just free promotion by Ribblr no need to sign up or anything as it’s automatic and just shows the thumbnail photos of your patterns)
How do I pick testers on this site?
I’m not sure if you meant how to choose or how to actually assign testers so I’ll do both
To get testers post a tester call with the Ribblr link either in the photo or separate and have some general information like the due date, if a specific yarn/yarn color/yarn type is needed or if other materials are required and any other requirements you may have like good communication/etc, I also see if the pattern will be gifted upon completion of testing the pattern from other tester calls. This is all done in your shop manager I believe both the posting and accepting testers, make sure to read the tester guidelines for better understanding. Ribblr has three steps to follow which are very good ones!
If you want journals make sure to note that any suggestions/mistakes/etc be notified through the tester group message and not the journal as journals are public to everyone once the pattern is published and if they see so many mistakes they’ll assume it’s still in the pattern and not get it
As for how to choose them, Ribblr added a mechanic called Karma. Karma is only visible to users and designers when looking through who applies. Karma is awarded to users who tested and completed the pattern. 1 karma = 1 completed test. This could help you decide as this means that user has done and completed tests and won’t ghost you (which does unfortunately happen sometimes) keep in mind that new users and those that don’t test often will have 0/low karma so it’s up to you if you want accept them. Karma is only awarded by Designers when they click the gift and remove option for that tester during the testing phase
Other designers may ignore that function and focus on a user’s My Makes (found when you click on a user and on their profile) or if they’re active in the community, etc it’s up to you and what you feel like doing, also to note I know designers do keep track personally on who ghosts/doesn’t communicate/etc as to not pick them again along with keeping note of good testers so that’s also something you can do later on to pick testers
Do you find better luck finding testers on this site vs Instagram or other social media?
I don’t have any other social media but this but I imagine it might be hard as the algorithm probably won’t show your tester call to a lot of people, here there’s no algorithms. You just post and it pops to the top if someone comments on it along with being in the new section for those that haven’t seen it, it will be seen for sure
I hope I offered some good info, good luck and don’t hesitate to ask anything else or if you didn’t understand something I wrote so I can clarify it better!
Thank you ((: yeah I’ve noticed how much interaction goes on in the Testing zone tab, it’s awesome!
Super super cute shop by the way! Your patterns are adorable
Ah I see so Stripe is how people get payments. Is that the only way? Like could I link paypal or would I have to make a stripe account?
And thank you I made my little logo myself (:
this is a very cute pattern 
but a lot of people on ribblr would be crocheters rather than just random people on instagram ykwim?
) or searching through the community with keywords if you ever want/need immediate answers
