Important Info on Errors in Pattern Books and Magazines

As a designer and author, the thrill of having a book released cannot be described in words, especially when people love it and the book is getting 5 star reviews. But one of the worst things we experience is finding out about an error in a pattern. The only consolation we have is that now we have the Internet so anyone in the world can look up the pattern on the author/designer's website, blog or on Ravelry.

I want you all to understand how the errors can happen and how it can't always be helped. No matter how perfect you think your manuscript is when sending it off to the publishder to be seen by the tech editor, something is going to end up being changed. I want everyone to know that as professional designers, we have every single project tested by a pattern tester, and when they report back to us that they made the project with no problems or if they have pointed out something they didn't understand and it has been corrected by us, the designer, we feel 100% confident there are no errors.

But at the same time, I have to face reality. Even though I know my patterns have been tested and cleared for errors, worded the way I know can be understood and know the tech editor will probably condense the pattern, some for the sake of making more room in the book, it still makes me very nervous. When the process happens, you just have to trust the tech editor and trust the publisher for hiring the best tech editors in the business. That's the only way I can sleep at night!

Knowing all this and having told you what the process is, there are bound to be mistakes because of human error. The patterns not only go through me, the editor, and the tech editor, but it goes through proof readers as well. Sometimes when the tech editor is correcting any math (grading the sizes), condensing the pattern, or rearranging the wording, things get left off or rearranged because of copying and pasting. Then the patterns are all sent back to us as the designer to check for any errors the tech editor may have made. Seems simple enough, right?

But it's not that simple. I try to read every single word of the patterns again to check for errors, but it is humanly impossible to catch every single error or thing that was changed. Actually, the only way I could be sure to catch any errors would be to start the project over, and make it again myself, or have a pattern tester make it again! There's no time to do this, because of deadlines, just hoping and praying we have caught everything. 

When the book is released and as people are making patterns, you may get comments about things that are minor, such as a comma missing, a stitch count missing, or occasionally the number of sts that weren't added for a larger size, but when someone finds a major error that would cause someone to give up on the pattern, or that could give the designer a bad reputation, this is devestating! I'm thankful that most publishers now include a stitch pattern diagram making it easier to understand, and as happy as it makes me that inexperienced crocheters are trying the patterns, sometimes they just don't understand because of inexperience. I try to be patient and help them understand when they contact me.

But like I said, thank goodness for the Internet and my blog! Thanks for allowing me to explain this because readers automatically think the errors are the fault of the designer and that's not always the case. We are meticulous about writing our patterns correctly and hiring pattern testers. I'm not saying we don't make mistakes. As humans we all do.