Another way to keep in touch

Posted 13 Dec 2014 by JC

Finding out what’s new at Stitch-Maps.com just got easier. The “Keep in touch” section at the bottom of each page just got a link for a new RSS feed.

Add the Swatch photos feed to your favorite feed reader, and you’ll get notified anytime someone contributes a swatch photo. Pretty slick, eh?

This new RSS feed joins the News articles and Stitch patterns feeds, which – no surprise here – let you know about the latest news articles and stitch patterns. Myself, I watch all these feeds with the Netvibes feed reader, but I understand that Feedly is pretty popular too.

Enjoy!

Preferences

Posted 12 Dec 2014 by JC

Here’s a new perk for subscribers: the ability to specify preferences.

If you have a basic or premium subscription, you’ll find an “Edit preferences” menu option in the upper-right corner of every page.

This brings up a page that lets you specify several preferences, in three categories.

• Browse preferences You get to decide how search results are displayed: in what order; as stitch maps, swatch photos, or a simple list; and in groups of 12, 60, or 120.
• View preferences Want to see column guides in addition to symbols? Just a single horizontal or vertical repeat, instead of the usual two? No problem.
• Contribute preferences When contributing stitch patterns, set their visibility to “private” or “hidden” rather than “public.”

Note that all of these preferences are merely defaults. You can, of course, override them when browsing the collection, viewing a stitch pattern, or contributing a new stitch pattern.

Some of you, I know, have been waiting for this feature for some time. Thank you, for your patience!

Order by

Posted 11 Dec 2014 by JC

Heads up! The Browse page now offers two more “order by” options. In addition to sorting search results by name or by most recently added, you can now sort them by most recently edited or by most popular:

• “Order by recently edited” shows the stitch patterns that have most recently changed in any way: written instructions, description, tags, stitch maps, whatever.
• “Order by most popular” shows the stitch patterns that have been “favorited” the greatest number of times.

As a bonus, the detail page for every stitch map now shows when it was contributed, and when it was last edited.

Enjoy!

More cable crosses

Posted 26 Nov 2014 by JC

By request, Stitch-Maps.com now supports a dozen more cable symbols:

• 1/2 LC
• 1/2 LPC
• 1/2 LT
• 1/2 LPT
• 2/3 LC
• 2/3 LPC
• 1/2 RC
• 1/2 RPC
• 1/2 RT
• 1/2 RPT
• 2/3 RC
• 2/3 RPC

The addition of these 1/2 and 2/3 crosses makes for a grand total of sixty cable cross symbols. Do you figure that’s enough? If not, let me know!

Short rows

Posted 19 Nov 2014 by JC

Short rows! At long last, you can now draw stitch maps containing short-row turns. This makes it possible to map short-row doilies like Zig-zag Doily:

With two vertical repeats on display, you can see how the patterning flows from one “wedge” of the doily to the next. And you can see how, with enough wedges, you could seam the cast-on edge to the bind-off edge to create a circle.

When knitting, stitch maps with short rows are easier to follow if you enable row guides, or – better yet – if you have a subscription and you enable current row highlighting:

Truthfully? I get a kick out of viewing these short-rowed stitch maps with just column guides enabled, no symbols. No, you can't knit from 'em, but they are kind of fascinating, aren’t they?

Of course, doilies aren’t the only bit of knitting to make use of short rows. No doubt y’all will think of other short-rowed pieces that you’ll want to map. But before you get started mapping short rows, you’ll want to read the new Short rows section of the knitspeak guide. Really! I mean it! Go read it now. I’ll wait.

Following the ground rules given in the knitspeak guide ought to give you a readable stitch map, though sometimes the symbols may get a little squished together. This is probably unavoidable. Consider this stitch map for a heel turn:

The stitch map is flat. But an actual heel turn would ”pooch out,” creating a three-dimensional pocket for the wearer’s heel. Is it any wonder that flattening the heel turn into two dimensions results in a slightly wonky stitch map, with its symbols butting up against each other?

That said, if you get any seriously funky results when mapping short rows, please let me know! I’ve done what seems like a ton of testing, but as with any piece of software, that’s no guarantee that everything’s okay.

Have fun with this! I look forward to seeing what y’all come up with.