What is the #TESTERNOTEBOOK?

You have discovered the awesomeness that is fibre art pattern testing and now you have stumbled upon this notebook as you have presumably been looking for a way to organize your upcoming pattern test.

First off, welcome! Whether you have stumbled here, intentionally sought me (or the tester notebook out) or are just scrolling, thank you for taking your time to learn more about the tester notebook and shades of knitting.

Second, if you have discovered this notebook before you have learned about test knitting and crocheting, I am so excited to introduce you to the world of pattern testing, however this post assumes you know what pattern testing is. If you don’t there are some awesome resources out there including the amazing blog from Kasey at The Skeiniac, you can check her out here. 

But as a quick recap, fibre art pattern testing is knitting, crocheting or Tunisian crocheting a pattern from a designer before it is released and providing the designer with helpful information about their pattern, and this is where the tester notebook comes in.

How the tester notebook and shades of knitting came to be

Every hero has an origin story, right? And this is the origin story of the tester notebook. Four years ago, as I was teaching myself to knit from YouTube and knitting blogs I created my Instagram and started following knitting, crochet and yarn accounts eventually finding my way to September Knits Design’s (@rachaelmresse) instagram. She posted a test knit call for the Dear Friend Shawl and on a whim I applied and she picked me to be one of her testers.

I instantly fell in love!

Looking back, I was not a great tester (again I point you to Kasey’s blog for tips and resources for testing) BUT it gave me the confidence to continue to test and slowly my skills grew. Flash forward to the end of 2020 where I had three tests on the go and was juggling notebooks and papers with my notes and then BOOM it hit me I could design a notebook that would help keep track of all on-going tests, due dates, yarn, needle size, designer, hashtags, etc.

 

Creating the notebook

With an idea in mind I got to work right away, like literally an hour after I had the idea and luckily my 9-5 involves using software to layout magazines so I was able to tap into those skills when creating the Tester Notebook.

Once finished, just like a designer would do with a pattern I decided to send it out to some amazing maker friends to get tested. (Thank you to @_potsandknots @makingmatteson @the_yarn_goddess @seb847) 

And that was how the tester notebook was born.

               

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Have any questions? Let me know I am happy to answer them all!