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Bunny ears decreases

Posted 12 Jan 2017 by JC

Over the past few months, chrisfourfalcon has been posting some really nifty stitch patterns making use of “bunny ears decreases.” I think my favorites are Little hearts:

And Bunny Ears Mesh:

Up until now, Chris has had to make do with 3-to-2 gather symbols. But bunny ears decreases are so special – they reduce three stitches to two and create a symmetrical result – that I figured they deserved symbols of their own:

Bunny ears dec shows that three stitches become two that lean away from each other.
Bunny ears back dec shows that three stitches become two that lean towards each other.

These symbols make it possible to create stitch maps like this one for Little hearts:

The key, of course, details how to work these decreases. Enjoy!

Shorter

Posted 2 Jan 2017 by JC

Here’s a sweet little improvement to the affiliate program that debuted last August: you can now shorten the affiliate links you create.

how to shorten an affiliate link

Simply click the “Shorten” button, and a long link like https://stitch-maps.com/about/abbreviations/?aid=jcbriar&atag=news becomes a short link like https://stitch-maps.com/to/Wrp/. Both lead to the same page, of course. (Go ahead, try them!) It’s just that the shorter one is, well, shorter.

For either link, clicking the “Test” button opens the link in a new browser tab. Clicking the “Select and copy to clipboard” button selects the text of the link and – if your browser is willing – copies that text to your system’s clipboard. (If your browser isn’t willing, you can always copy it to the clipboard yourself.) You can then paste the link into your patterns, or social media posts, or whatever.

Why create short links? You can probably think of reasons of your own. But for me, it’s because I’ve been toying with QR codes lately. Imagine, for example, printed class handouts with QR codes that students can scan to get to specific pages at Stitch-Maps.com. And the way to get smaller, more reliable QR codes is to start with shorter links. Sure, it’d be possible to shorten links at bit.ly or goo.gl, but I don’t care for their privacy policies. At Stitch-Maps.com, you can rest assured that your short links will remain private.

Questions? Suggestions? Let me know!

Enhanced searching by tags

Posted 14 Oct 2016 by JC

Searching by tags has always been a fun way to explore the collection of stitch patterns at Stitch-Maps.com. Now it’s even more fun, as you have a bit more control with options "any,” “all,” and “none.”

The “any” option is the default, and works as before – for example, searching for “Estonian,” “Orenburg,” and “German” will return stitch patterns with any of those tags.

The “all” option is new, and lets you search for stitch patterns with all of the specified tags – for example, searching for “Barbara Walker” and “twisted stitches” will return stitch patterns from Barbara Walker’s Treasuries that feature twisted stitches.

The “none” option is a little different. It returns stitch patterns with none of the specified tags. This can be handy if, say, you don’t like garter stitch and only want to see stitch patterns that aren’t tagged with either “garter” or “garter lace.”

Or say you wanted to ensure that all the edging patterns you’d entered had been tagged with “edging.” You could use the “none” option with the “my public patterns” checkbox to see which of your patterns lacked that tag.