Writing Up Your Changes to Someone Else's Pattern

Very few makers follow a pattern exactly. You lengthen the body because you are tall, swap the yarn for one you already own, skip the bobbles, add a pocket. Those changes are some of the most valuable things a maker can share, because the next person who makes the same pattern will face the same choices. A good write-up of your modifications is a map left for them at the fork in the road.

It is also a post about someone else's work, and that brings a few responsibilities. Here is how we would keep a project log while you make the piece, and then turn it into a write-up that helps other makers and is fair to the designer.

Keep the log while you work, not afterwards

By the time a sweater is finished, you will not remember whether you added four rows or six to the sleeve, or which skein you started the yoke with. Memory is generous and inaccurate. The only reliable record is one you keep as you go.

It does not need to be elaborate. A small notebook in the project bag, a note on your phone, or a printed copy of the pattern you write on all work. What matters is a few habits:

• Date each entry. It helps you reconstruct the order of events later, and it shows how long each stage took.
• Write down numbers, not impressions. "Sleeve: 12 extra rows before the cuff, 64 sts at the cuff instead of 60" is useful. "Made the sleeves a bit longer" is not.
• Note the reason with the change. "Swatch came out at 23 sts per 10 cm instead of 22, so made the next size up" will matter more to a reader than the change itself.
• Record what went wrong. Ripping back is part of the story, and often the most instructive part.
• Take a quick photo at each milestone, even a bad one. You will be glad of a picture of the yoke before you joined the sleeves.

Name the pattern and its designer first

Before anything else in the post, say clearly what you made and who designed it. Give the pattern's full name, the designer's name, and a link to where the pattern is published or sold. Put it near the top, not in a footnote. Readers who like your version will want to find the original, and the designer deserves the credit for the thinking that went into it.

If you bought the pattern, it does no harm to say so. If you were given it to test or review, say that too.

Describe your changes; don't republish the pattern

This is the line that matters most. A write-up of your modifications should make sense alongside the pattern, not instead of it. Copying out the pattern's instructions, charts or stitch counts, even with your changes woven in, republishes someone else's work. It also undercuts the designer, whose income may depend on people buying the pattern. Our guidelines are plain about copyright, and we take it seriously.

In practice, that means writing about changes in terms of the pattern's own structure:

In the body section, I worked the waist decreases every 8th round instead of as written, and added 5 cm before the hem ribbing.

A reader who owns the pattern can follow that easily. A reader who doesn't learns what is possible, and can buy the pattern if they want to try. What you should not do is reproduce the round-by-round instructions that would let someone make the piece without it.

The same goes for photographs of the pattern pages and charts. Photograph your work, not the designer's.

What to include in the write-up

Turn the log into a short, structured post. A shape that works for most garments and accessories:

1. The basics: pattern and designer, size made, yarn used (with weight, fibre, metres per skein), needle or hook sizes.
2. Your gauge compared with the pattern's, and what you did about the difference.
3. Each change, in the order it appears in the pattern, with the reason. Use the pattern's own section names as headings, so readers can find their place.
4. Yarn used, weighed at the end if you can: "used 412 g of the 500 g bought" is precious information for anyone substituting.
5. How it fits and wears, with photos. What you would change next time.

Keep the reasons honest and specific to you. "I lengthened the body because I prefer sweaters below the hip" is a choice; "the body is too short" is a judgment about the design that may not be true for anyone else.

Be fair when something doesn't work

Sometimes you find what looks like an error in a pattern: a stitch count that does not add up, a chart that disagrees with the written row. Before you write about it, check whether the designer has already published a correction, and if not, contact them. Most designers want to know, and many will fix it quickly. Then your post can say "there's a correction for row 34 on the designer's site" instead of "the pattern is wrong".

If something did not suit you, write about it as your experience: what you expected, what happened, what you would do instead. Readers are perfectly able to weigh a calm, specific criticism. They are less able to use one written in irritation.

Help the next maker find your notes

Put the pattern name in the title, so people looking for notes on it can find yours: something like "Notes on my [pattern name], lengthened and in a heavier yarn". Tag the post with the craft and the kind of change, such as "modifications", "yarn substitution" or "plus size". Readers who follow your blog through its RSS feed will see new write-ups as they appear.

If you go further and design something of your own from these lessons, our post on writing a pattern other makers can follow covers what changes when the instructions are yours to give.