So, what are the benefits of being a part of the Ravelry community?
- A free, clear, and consise online design portfolio with information about your patterns: gauge, yarn requirements, needle/ hook sizes, link to the source of your pattern, etc.
- A gallery of finished objects- Ravelry shows that information on each pattern page (on the projects tab), which then could be linked on your own personal website so that other Ravelry members can easily find it.
- You will also be able to view the people working on your designs in one central location. In an ideal world, we'd love to see the designers participate in the pattern pages- contributing corrections, answering questions, etc. (You could easily stay posted by subscribing to an rss feed for your patterns, for example.) You can also see what modifications people made, comments on your pattern in Ravelry and out in blogland (blog post integration is built into the site), and what yarns people used - all gathered in one place.
- We are currently testing a low-cost pattern delivery system with Paypal. Ravelry would be used in conjunction with your own site or on its own here in Ravelry to deliver pattern .pdfs to users. After purchasing the pattern via Paypal, users can then opt to have it saved in their Ravelry library or sent to their email. This system also gives you statistics on your pattern distribution, as well as a "user activity tab" that lets you keep track of the users who are queueing, favoriting, and working on your patterns.
How to Get Started with Ravelry
- Create your Ravelry account (from the email invitation sent to you), fill in your profile info and photo in the About Me section. After that step, you can start browsing for your designs in the Patterns tab. If you notice that your designs are already on Ravelry and you would like to connect your Ravelry profile to your designs, please contact us and she will do it for you - it has to be done manually at this point. Please include your Ravelry username, the name you would like listed with your designs - first and last (we cannot accept first names or Ravelry usernamesonly)- and the name of one of your patterns that is listed on Ravelry. If your designs are not in the Ravelry database yet, you can add them by following the instructions on the Ravelry Wiki Page for Designers. Once Ravelry has made that connection for you, you can edit your patterns' information and add pictures for those designs from your Flickr account or another online photo hosting source. You can also edit the information at the top of your designer profile page by clicking on the pencil at the top. Please fill this information in to the best of your ability- the more information you include, the better!
- You can also use Ravelry to keep track of your FOs and works in progress. We also have sections for a project queue, yarn stash and needle/ hook inventories in your personal notebook. For more information about tracking your personal projects and tools, go here.
- Finally, we ask that you please subscribe with your favorite newsreader (bloglines, google reader, etc) to our news blog on the front page of the site so we can keep you updated on new features: http://www.ravelry.com/news.rss
