Information for designers

Announcing new pattern releases

"New releases" refers to any new patterns and/or collections released after the event start date (November 25, 2022), provided they're available on at least one off-Ravelry sales channel. This can also include existing patterns and/or collections which have gone through an inclusivity upgrade, like adding more sizes or including low vision features.

Use our new releases form  to submit your new patterns for all to see! Form submissions will be used to add new releases to designers' pages and the pattern search on this website, and on the publicly-available pattern product spreadsheet .

If you're on our Discord server, you can post about your new patterns to the #new-releases channel. And of course you should also feel free to post about it on social media using the #FastenOffYAL event hashtag.

Important note

Designer signups are now CLOSED for the 2022 event. Thank you so much to everyone who joined!

We're leaving all the signup information here for the reference of our participating designers.

What we can do for you

• The Fasten Off Yarnalong gives independent knitting and crochet designers access to an audience of eager crafters interested in buying and making your patterns! The designers who participated in 2020 and 2021 gave us great feedback. Of those who responded to our feedback form in 2021:
  • 88.6% felt the event was a good experience.
  • 88.9% got sales during the event's discount period.
• Our searchable database of designers and patterns will include information about you, all your single patterns which are purchasable online on an off-Ravelry channel, and any eBooks which you want to make eligible for the event discount. To get an idea of what this will be like, check out our 2021 database (although note that this database contains only discount-eligible patterns; we're expanding this for 2022).
  • If you're worried about how time-consuming or difficult it will be to provide detailed information about your products for our database, no worries! This year we will be grabbing data from the Ravelry API to make data entry quicker, easier, and more comprehensive and data-rich.
  • If your product information is not fully available from the Ravelry API, we'll work with you to make your data entry happen. And if filling out a spreadsheet is not your thing, we have volunteers who can help.
• You can interact with our community directly in a friendly environment on a variety of online channels.
• This year we're hoping to promote designers even more than ever before with online AMAs (Ask Me Anything) and "fireside chats" with our designers via social media channels, and voice and/or video calls with the making audience.

Expectations of designers

Do you qualify?

• Do you offer for-pay patterns via a non-Ravelry sales channel?
• Can you apply a custom code for a specific discount rate to products on that sales channel?
• Are at least 25% of all your self-published paid patterns, or 10 patterns, whichever is smaller, available for purchase on that sales channel?

Then...yes!

There is no minimum number of self-published patterns required to be a participating designer.

Please note though, that your patterns should be of professional quality, tested and/or tech-edited to make them as error-free as possible. Inclusive patterns are particiularly encouraged (accessible to crafters with low vision, screen reader compatible, graded to a full-range of sizes, etc.).

Designers are welcome to participate in any other designer event simultaneously, there are zero restrictions on that.

Requirements and responsibilities of participating designers

• You need to sign up as a participating designer
• You'll need to set up the event's discount code for 25% off on a certain number of your patterns
  • Discount code to be valid during the event's discount period
  • Minimum number of discounted patterns is 25% of your self-published paid patterns (rounded up to nearest whole number), or 10, whichever is smaller
  • On top of this, you can also make eBooks eligible for the event discount if you want
  • No maximum number of discounted products
  • If you want to set up the event discount code for your patterns on multiple sales channels, feel free!
• Provide five free virtual patterns (winner's choice from among all your self-published single patterns), to be used as prizes and in giveaways. You can choose to either arrange with winners directly for prize delivery (we'll send a notification to you and the winner), or provide us with prize codes and the website where they can be redeemed so that winners can self-serve.
• You'll work with event organizers to ensure that information about you and your self-published pattern products available on non-Ravelry sales channels are in our database
  • You'll let us know which of these products will be eligible for the event discount code
  • The vast majority of data entry will be done automatically by pulling data from Ravelry's API; if this is problematic for you, the event organizers can work with you to complete the process
  • We ask that designers who require volunteers to help them with data entry provide patterns to them (volunteer's choice) as a thank-you; the rate is one pattern per group of up to 25 products input, e.g. 45 products = 2 patterns.
• Respond promptly (i.e. within approximately 2 business days) and professionally to customer messages (especially issues with using the discount code on your patterns) and prize winners
  • Organizers do not provide discount support and will direct stitchers to reach out to you instead
  • If you have a dedicated channel for customer contact which you provide for publication in your designer profile on the event website, you're not expected to respond to messages outside that channel
• Ensure all information you provide for the event is accurate
• Moderate your own social spaces
• Follow the code of conduct 

Signing up

Designer signups are now CLOSED for 2022! But for reference, here's a step-by-step guide to how it will all work:

Step 1: Prepare for signup

Must-haves for signup

• Decide on what you want your designer name or brand name to be for the event
• Have a primary online space
• Decide whether it's okay for event social posts to use your images (with attribution) when sharing your work
• Decide which products you'll be making eligible for the event discount
• Decide which will be your primary sales platform for the discount-eligible patterns
• Decide whether you would like to connect with winners directly for prize delivery, or provide prize codes
  • If providing prize codes, also decide on five single-use codes; they don't need to be in place until the event starts, but they must work as follows:
    • Codes provide 100% off any of your single self-published patterns
    • Valid during the window of 9pmET November 25, 2022 to 11:59pmET January 31, 2023
    • Please make sure these codes are not easily guessable by anyone who's won one of them (e.g. don't make them designername-prize1, designername-prize2, etc.)
  • Ensure you have a site or page where all your single self-published patterns can be found and where prize codes can be redeemed

Nice-to-haves for signup

These are all optional!

• Short description of your business
• Information about how customers should communicate with you
• The URL of an image of you or your logo, minimum 200px wide
• If you're on any of these platforms, social media account names for: Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Patreon, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok
• If you have any of these sites, URLs for: your newsletter signup, Facebook page and/or group, main website, Payhip site, Etsy shop, Shopify shop, Gumroad shop, Ravelry designer page, Mastodon profile page, and any other sales channels or other websites relevant to your business

Step 2: Sign up

Signup period ran from November 7 to 20, 2022.

The signup form is how you tell us all the information we need about you, your design business, your pattern products, etc.

Step 3: Confirmation from event staff

We'll get back to you to let you know if you're officially a participating designer. From there, we'll let you know what the next steps are for...

Step 4: Data entry of your patterns into our spreadsheet database.

This year we'll be mostly grabbing data from the Ravelry API to speed things up and improve the amount of data available about pattern products. (This also means more search features on the website!)

Our team of volunteers can work with you to fill in any gaps in the available pattern data, or to do more extensive entry if there's a problem with pulling your product data from Ravelry's database.

This must be completed no later than November 23, 2022 (and ideally much earlier), although of course the earlier you sign up to be a participating designer, the more time we have for this activity.

If we're not able to finish data entry with you by this date, we will be unable to have you as a participating designer in the event.

Step 5: Review your data on our website

This starts right after Step 4 is completed, and we need to hear back from you as soon as possible with either your approval or any corrections that need to be made.

The last day of the review period is November 24, 2022.

If we don't get your approval of your data on our website after this date, we'll publish your data as-is.

Step 6: Set up the discount code

For each of your discounted products, set up the discount code to be valid during the discount period.

• The discount amount is 25% off.
• The discount code is 'FO2022'.
• The discount code must be set up so that it's valid from 9pmET November 25 to 11:59pmET December 8, 2022.
  • We understand that not all sales platforms allow you to set up code windows with this level of precision, so if the code is valid a little before and/or after the exact window, that's alright. However, the code should not expire before the discount period ends.

Step 7: Participate in the event and have fun!

There are lots of ways that you can get involved as a designer:

• Promote the event on social media:
  • You can grab our logo 
  • We have promotional images just for designers in our designers folder 
  • We have general event promotional images in our public folder 
  • We'll continue to post here if any other creative assets become available
• Promote your fellow participating designers on social media
• Join the conversations on our Discord server
• Make some projects in the yarnalong
• Participate in event games and activities
• Volunteer to be profiled in one of our online Ask Me Anythings (AMAs) and/or "fireside chats" (we'll be providing more details about this via the participating designers mailing list)

Step 8: Prize delivery

If you provided prize codes and a website where they could be used, then the organizers will take care of contacting the prize code winners and from that point it will be completely self-serve, no need for you to do anything.

If you didn't provide prize codes:

• Organizers will contact you with the information for the winners of your patterns; you are responsible for providing the pattern to the winner.
• Any winner contact information you're given is exclusively for the purpose of delivering prizes; you may not use this contact information to solicit business or drive promotional material.

We will be telling winners that prizes must be claimed no later than January 31, 2023.