Finding Patterns

People ask me all the time how I find the patterns I use. Nearly all of my patterns come from one of three places. (All of which are primarily free!) Where else do you find patterns?

1. Ravelry
Ravelry is one of my favorite sites when I'm looking for a specific pattern because it has an awesome search engine that lets me really narrow down the results. Plus, it literally has THOUSANDS of patterns! I can search by craft (knit or crochet), type of garment, size, gender specific items, yardage, yarn weight, price, etc. I can also store my favorite patterns in my Ravelry 'library' so I'll always have access to them. I'm not going to lie, the site is extremely extensive and can be a tad difficult to navigate (I've been using it for years and still find new features!) but once you've gotten it down, you'll love it, trust me!

2. Craftsy
Craftsy reminds me of a mix of Pinterest and Ravelry. It has the awesome Ravelry-style patterns, but in a easy-to-navigate Pinterest-style format. Don't get me wrong, I like Pinterest, but I often get frustrated by some of the faulty links, I never have to worry about that at Craftsy! Plus, Craftsy offers great, professional online classes to learn all kinds of new and fun techniques! :)

3. I make it up.
I know, this probably isn't what you want to hear, but the more you knit and crochet, the more you'll begin to really understand how to put things together foundationally to achieve a specific look or effect and you'll start doing this on your own. I often tag things on Pinterest I'd like to emulate (often the link doesn't take me to an actual pattern, ugh!) and then I spend some time copying it to the best of my ability, or altering it to fit my needs. Don't worry, this is a skill that will come with time, and a bit of trial and error. My advice is to let it happen naturally, it's taken me years to learn this, expect failure, I often frog the same project a dozen times before I get it to look like I want, keep a good friend nearby, my mom is awesome to bounce ideas off of or give me tips, and, perhaps most importantly, write EVERYTHING down! I carry a small journal with me and write everything down, including the mistakes. When I finish the project I re-write it in a way I can reuse later on, because trust me, eventually you WILL want to know how you did something and you WILL NOT remember.

God Bless!