Thanks to feedback from knitters like you, Stitch-Maps.com now has symbols for threaded stitches that I’m hopeful will work well for lots of knitters. Here’s a snippet of the key:
You can find all the details in this news article. Though I have to say, I’m especially tickled by this swatch photo:
These new symbols bring the symbol count at Stitch-Maps.com to a whopping 265. Whew! Think of all the possibilities!
Are you new to threaded stitches? Check out this video:
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How to work threaded stitches
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Every week since February 2016, I’ve posted a “Did You Know?” Tip of the Week in the Stitch Maps group on Ravelry. Each post gives “best practices” advice for making use of stitch maps and Stitch-Maps.com. Not surprisingly, after 2+ years I started to feel like I was running out of things to say – but dedicated members of the group convinced me to keep the thread going! On the group’s advice, I’m not going to worry about repeating myself, and I’m going to show more examples.
With that in mind... do you have a topic you want discussed? For example, what part of creating or using stitch maps would you like to know more about? What aspects of using the Stitch-Maps.com website could be made more clear? |
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For much of July, temps were in the nineties – so I think I can be forgiven for not making much progress on the seamless Selbuvotter-inspired sweater. But you can see I’ve joined the fronts below the neck opening, and added the neckband.
If you look close, you can see that I’ve eliminated the weird blip that plagued the purple sample sweater – yay!
And with DH’s help, I’ve chosen a stitch pattern for the yoke.
Stay tuned!
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What’s keeping me busy
Have you seen my schedule for Stitches SoCal? Almost all of my classes are new! So naturally I’ve been busy putting together fresh handouts – starting with Lace That Grows, a reboot of my old Wedge Shawl Design class. This reboot will feature more hands-on practice right at the start of the class, making the later discussions more meaningful. Check out the samples I’ve knit so far:
It’s not too late to sign up!
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Registration for Stitches West has opened, and I’m teaching a whopping 11 classes. I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me.
Some have already sold out! Register now while you still can.
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This is going to sound a little weird, maybe, from someone who travels around the country and beyond to teach knitting – but I really liked this Times opinion piece on Internet use.
In a nutshell, the author argues that,
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“[The] way the internet can help steer us toward something useful bears mentioning in a time of growing digital skepticism. It is a reminder that the internet’s most effective trick is connecting disparate individuals into a coherent whole.”
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Well, that's true enough, isn’t it? As the author says,
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“The internet has gotten a bad rap lately, and we are justifiably worried that our digital devices are driving isolation and fear, polarization and addiction, loneliness and outrage. The worries seem to call for a simple fix — we should all just use the internet less often.
“But on the hobbyist internet, the opposite applies.”
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In-person classes – such as the ones I teach – are great when you can set aside a chunk of dedicated study time, when you want to have someone looking over your shoulder and giving you how-to advice tailored just for you. But they can be too infrequent for the new learner.
On the Internet, though? You can connect to a multitude of people that share your interests, no matter where you are, how much time you have on hand today, or how obscure your interests might be. You can learn – via blog posts, discussion boards, videos, and online classes – the disparate approaches taken by those with more experience than you. In short, you can learn from others’ mistakes. And you can do it on your own schedule. Granted, videos and such are “no substitute for actual practice.” But they can fast-track your own self-guided learning.
What do you think? Do you prefer the camaraderie and focussed learning of an in-person class? Or the convenience of online exploration?
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