The chair by the window.

Where it started

A few years ago, I got sick. It was a long illness, the kind that keeps you mostly at home for months at a time. Some days the most I could manage was getting from the bed to the chair by the window, and not much further than that.

A friend dropped off a crochet hook and a bag of leftover yarn, mostly, I think, so I'd have something to do with my hands besides worry. I'd never crocheted a stitch in my life. I ruined the first few skeins completely.

What it gave back

I kept going anyway, because it turned out to fit into a day that didn't have much room in it. A few rows in the morning if I had it in me, a few more in the afternoon if I didn't. It didn't ask for energy I couldn't spare, and it left me with something to show for a day that otherwise felt like it had gotten away from me — a granny square, a few inches of a blanket, a small, finished thing.

It gave me something to look forward to, on days when there wasn't a lot else to look forward to.

Sharing what I was making

I started writing my rows down, mostly so I wouldn't lose my place between naps. Then a few friends who'd been checking in on me asked if they could try the patterns too, so I typed them up properly and shared them in a small Facebook group. Then their friends asked. The group kept growing in a way I hadn't planned for and didn't really see coming.

Becoming a library

What started as a handful of patterns shared with people who were worried about me slowly turned into hundreds, then thousands — charted, tested, written out properly, with new ones added most weeks. Somewhere along the way it stopped being just my hobby and became a place other makers, going through their own versions of a hard year, could come find something to hold onto too.

That's the library We Make Patterns is today: one of the largest independent pattern collections online, built row by row by someone who was mostly just trying to get through a bad stretch of time.

Why the pricing looks the way it does

I remember what it was like to not have much money or energy to spare some months. That's why every pattern here is $3.50, and why VIP Club exists at all — so the people who want the whole library can have it for less than buying patterns one at a time, and so a bad month never has to mean going without something to make.