Please would designers think about the amount of pages their designs take up AND how many instructions they actually need to write down. I know I've done this moan before but I feel it's worth going over again.
I've recently been looking at a pattern which is 32 pages long and would cost a fortune in inks (lots of dark backgrounds) and paper to print out (let's try saving our planet). If I had been asked to write this simple generic pattern down it would take 3 pages (maybe 4) to describe, draw and present. New tatters need to learn the craft thoroughly before venturing into designing. Starting with researching what has gone before.
Another thing that's worrying me now is that due to YouTube people are now using other designer's patterns to show 'how to make' a design (hopefully with full permission given). I've watched one or two of these and feel we're doing our craft no favours at all. Why? We're teaching people to follow like sheep and not have to think. This is the same for some of the patterns that are being sold online too. Pages and pages telling and showing how and when to turn or reverse the work but not necessarily writing it down in the pattern instructions. Again this is going to lead to laziness in understanding how and why the lace 'works'.
My biggest moan of ALL for today is that these patterns NEVER give you a comfort break!!!! I know - I'm being silly now but soon they will be including instructions on how and when to take that break too!!!! Too many instructions will lead to the death of tatted lace and our brains too.
Must stop now - I need a comfort break and another cup of tea!!!! A picture of some pretty flowers I saw on a walk the other day.
Agreed! I store them on my phone and refresh the page when I need the next bit!
ReplyDeleteThey look like our flannel flowers!
ReplyDeleteAlthough many of the new designs are on YouTube I never bother with them. I haven’t got the patience to sit in front of the screen. I agree with you about the lengthy patterns, a few years ago I bought one without realising this and never bothered to print it.
I like your format- diagrams AND explanation.
Yes, I think designers don't always think in terms of printing a pattern out. There needs to be a 'print friendly version'. Food bloggers are often very long winded, but the recipe itself is usually done in such a way that it can be easily printed.
ReplyDeleteI agree!
ReplyDeleteI don't have the patience to sit for 45 minutes (or longer) to watch someone tat or crochet or knit or whatever just so I can get the pattern. Give me a concise, easy-to-follow, relatively short pattern and I'll tat it. Thirty-two pages? Doesn't matter HOW pretty it is, I'm not going to bother with it. I like to print my patterns out, make notes on them if need be....and I really am not able to do things from a screen - can't see it well enough, probably. If you're learning to tat, the best thing you can do for yourself is to learn to follow a concise pattern and learn the 'basics' so you don't need to be shown every little stitch, picot, join, etc. Off my soapbox now....I agree with you, Jane.
ReplyDeleteStephanieW
Yes I'm one who moans 5+ pages, like you say with dark backgrounds or large images, but guess I'm also bad too as I've not learnt when it's turn, reverse or flip time or switch shuttles without trial and error attempts. I prefer the say so in the pattern even with a letter. :)
ReplyDeleteI can remember when we had to study patterns very carefully in order to make the lace correctly. And it's a while since anyone has done a really good techniques book like the Rhoda Auld and Elgiva Nicholls ones. The amount we all learnt from those books is incredible. And I found my copy of Ann Dyer recently, (Tatting: To Boldly Go where No Shuttle has gone before).
ReplyDeleteI know there are some really good web sites around like yours, Muskaan's and Ninette's, and being deaf I need subtitles for following videos these days. Hopefully someone will write an up to date techniques book some time as tatting has developed so much in the last 20 years.