The Hatterly Survey

As we move ahead with the new website build we’ve hit a few hurdles, all of which were unforeseeable, and most of which are due to or impacted by the pandemic in one way or another. I appreciate folks patience and wanting us to get it right as much as we do, but that still leaves a number of folks unable to search my patterns, as the Ravelry database is no longer accessible to them.

Image shows a close-up of a knitted swatch. It has an eyelet and garter stitch pattern and is worked in multi-coloured yarns.

Now that we’ve got all of the Woolly Wormhead Hat pattern data entered, untangled and sorted we’re in a position to offer an interim solution - a searchable spreadsheet that whilst limited compared to the database we’re building, will help you find the right Hat pattern while we wait for the new website.

But before we can publish it, it’ll help us to know a few things first. Because there is so much data - which means it’ll make a fantastic database - there’s a little too much for a spreadsheet and so we’re looking for the key search criteria that we can focus on for this interim project. You’ll still get everything you need, we’re just wanting to reduce the overwhelm and make it as usable as possible.

And so we’ve built a quick survey! Anonymous answers are totally OK. And it doesn’t matter whether you’d prefer to continue to use Ravelry if you’re able to - if you search for Hat knitting patterns your input is helpful. The more folks who respond, the clearer it is for us.

Click here to complete the Hatterly Survey!

The form will stay open until Sunday evening, May 23rd. We don’t want to leave it open long as we want to get out and in use as soon as we can.

The Woolly Hat Society newsletter went out yesterday with details of the survey and the response so far has been fantastic, thank you! I’d like to reply to a couple of the comments publicly if I can, as I appreciate folks are concerned about a few things:

1. My patterns will remain on the Ravelry database - it’s going to be counterproductive to remove them, as someone will only add them back in, and I’d sooner manage my listings to keep things correct and tidy and I have help with that.

2. We’re not looking for answers to any of the questions, rather trying to gauge a response to help us make the spreadsheet as useable as possible. By all means if you’ve ideas about the database functionality please do share! But do bear in mind that for the interim we’re presenting a spreadsheet which won’t have the same functionality and therefore won’t be as sophisticated as the website database.

3. That said, this isn’t just for the interim spreadsheet! We will use the data to make sure we’re on the right track with the new website build so as I mentioned above, do leave comments with ideas and suggestions - we’re reading them all!

4. If you’re not comfortable using a spreadsheet or don’t know what one is, adding that to your comments is still helpful! We know that an interim solution won’t work for everyone. But we have some options and choices and your responses can help guide us. And it’ll certainly help us build a better, easier to use database on the new website.

Thanks in advance for your input! If more questions or concerns come up on the form I’ll edit this post and respond here. Ta!