The topic of writing documentation came up recently in my local group’s chat, and so I thought I would take a moment to write about my process for writing my own documentation, with the hope that it will help others on their journey!
The first, and most important part of documentation is: photographs.\u00a0 Take pictures of your ENTIRE process, from raw materials to finished product.\u00a0 People love to see this and it helps answer a lot of questions by itself. When I am doing embroidery for example, I stop about every 2 hours or so, or if I\u2019ve started a new color\/section, and snap a quick picture.\u00a0 I don\u2019t always use them all, but they\u2019re nice to have!\u00a0 Another plus of doing photos is that you can easily fill up PAGES of documentation with them, especially if you write a little caption for each one explaining what you\u2019ve done in that part (highly recommend doing this).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once I have my project finished and all my photos taken, only then do I get off my rear and organize my research, so please feel free to do this earlier in the process, I\u2019m just lazy!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll want to have as much information as seems reasonable for a person to be able to read within a few minutes about the original piece that inspired your work (if applicable), and how they would have created this piece in period. After that, I find supporting evidence that shows the techniques used in other places (such as for embroidery, finding a certain stitch used in other places than the exact piece I\u2019m referencing) and add that information (and photos!) in. Once I\u2019ve covered the big questions (Who made it, How did they make it, Why did they make it, How was it used) I write a little about my own process and what materials I chose to use for the item, and why I picked what I picked if I deviated from the extant piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is really no one \u201cright\u201d format to do this. Honestly just write from the heart and put what you did every step in there and show it nicely, and you\u2019ll have great documentation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, that being said, the most important things to remember for building your documentation is: A little about how I write my documentation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[38,37,39],"featured_media_urls":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
What inspired your work of art (extant piece?\u00a0 recipe?)
How was it done in period?
Notes about what you changed
Speak about why you changed it
Talk about your process while crafting\/creating
MANY PHOTOS
I really can not stress the photos enough.\u00a0 If you do anything, put photos of your process into your documentation.\u00a0 Most people won\u2019t have time to stand there and read your documentation – heck, I\u2019ve had judges not read my documentation and only look at the photos I\u2019ve included – something I know because all their questions were answered in my text!\u00a0
As a working example, here is the documentation for the \u201cA Catte\u201d embroidery I did last year:
https:\/\/sca.eldclaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/a-catte-2.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"