Posts Tagged “books”

New Vintage Lace

By | August 26, 2014

Have you seen New Vintage Lace? I love this book! Andrea Jurgrau takes vintage doily patterns, lifts out and rejiggers their intricate motifs, and reinvents them as stunning hats, scarves, stoles, and shawls. It’s a fabulous idea, really. Those vintage patterns contain motifs unlike any in today’s stitch dictionaries: starbursts, overlapping petals, and lush leaves, […]

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Where to draw the line?

By | August 19, 2014

With hundreds of possible cable crosses, where should Stitch-Maps.com draw the line? Which cable crosses should it support, at least at first? To figure this out, I pulled a dozen stitch dictionaries, reference books, and pattern books off my shelves. Which cable crosses did they use? The results were interesting, though not too surprising when […]

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The LT/RT controversy

By | August 17, 2014

When it comes to cable cross abbreviations like 2/2 RC, the StitchMastery Knitting Chart Editor really gets it right. That piece of charting software recognizes a slew of cable cross abbreviations, all in the same form: The first half of the abbreviation specifies the number of strands, and the number of stitches in each strand: […]

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Choosing abbreviations

By | August 15, 2014

The first step in adding support for a new set of stitches to Stitch-Maps.com is figuring out what abbreviations to recognize. Which bits of text should map (no pun intended!) to which symbols? With cable crosses, that’s no small feat! In Charted Knitting Designs, Barbara Walker lists 80 basic cable crosses, and notes many more […]

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I stand corrected

By | September 26, 2012

It was brought to my attention yesterday that Cat’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks e-book suggests working increases on the sole before knitting the heel, if you have a high arch. Whoops! So it does, both in the general instructions on page 3 and in the individual sock patterns. Doing so would’ve eliminated the need for […]

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Ten toes and three heels

By | September 25, 2012

Secret project out of the way, I was able to return to and finish my “gotta have ’em now” toe socks: I’m thrilled that I pulled this particular skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silkie Socks that Rock out of my stash. The colors just scream “fun!” Which is what you need when your toes […]

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Staying power

By | June 28, 2012

Whee! Unicorn just released its TNNA Top Books list, the list of bestselling books at the industry’s top trade show. Charts Made Simple ranked as #8, after being out for over a year! Now that’s some staying power. 🙂 Several other publications from Visionary Authors also made the list, including five of the top ten. […]

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Upcoming fun and games

By | June 4, 2012

Mark your calendars: next Tuesday, June 12th, I get to be part of Marly Bird’s The Yarn Thing podcast! We’ll talk about Charts Made Simple (“what? that old thing again?”) and whatever else pops into our heads. Ooh, my first live interview… I hope I don’t sound like a dolt! In other news, registration for […]

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Playing around

By | May 29, 2012

Lately, I haven’t been able to commit to any long-term projects. Shoot, I haven’t been able to commit to anything bigger than a swatch. But that’s okay. I like swatching. Case in point: along with a number of my fellow Stitches teachers, I volunteered to create swatches for the Great Wall of Yarn at next […]

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Sucker

By | December 29, 2011

I’m a sucker for stitch dictionaries. That’s why I had to get this: Omas has been on my wish list for a long time. It’s in German, and I don’t read German – shoot, I can’t even pronounce the book’s title – but, as you can see above, Lacis distributes the book with an English […]

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