On A Cost of "Free" Patterns

I once had the wonderful experience of spending an entire week with one of my idols, Maggie Steber. I did my graduate project about her work and she was generous enough to let me stay with her as I finished interviewing her for it.

She showed me many, many collections of prints and told me about her first job in photography, at a tiny newspaper in Texas. I asked her if I could see those photos. She politely avoided my request for a bit, then looked at me and said, "It's very early work, and I don't show it."

Ah, the joys of the pre-internet days! I'm watching people discover my free patterns on Ravelry and it's nice that they're queuing and marking projects as favorites, but...it's early work and I almost wish I couldn't show it!

Most of my free patterns don't have sizing. Some are rather hastily written. All were edited just by myself (and maybe read over by one other person for any really obvious problems). None of them are particularly bad, but if people are taking them as examples of what my work is like now, they're definitely getting the wrong idea.

I learned a lot from writing those patterns, but now I feel as though all of my past sins are right out there, in public, for all the world to see. I just have to hope that people are looking for the good in them, and not just any problems there might be.

If you've found this site because of my free patterns:

...but please keep in mind that they were works-in-progress!