Reka Update 19 October 2021

(Originally posted 19 October 2021, not that you could tell.)

Hey folks!

It’s been a hot minute, but I’ve been getting a lot of work done on this and haven’t had a lot of time to update this blog. Here’s what I’ve been up to!

Etsy

I haven’t been doing much marketing my Etsy shop lately because I wanted to focus on school and the next thing, so not a lot has happened there other than that I now offer a luxury version of my standard headband, which comes in more expensive fibers (and, I think, prettier colors.).

Sweaters.py

I’ve officially finished my code! Or, it exists, it does what I need it to, and I can use it. Really, I’ll probably keep fiddling with it until the end of time I release it in some more official capacity. It took several full days to complete, from start to finish, and I’m pretty happy not only with what I’ve been able to achieve in terms of this iteration, but I also think I’ve built a pretty solid foundation to expand on in the future. It doesn’t have a name yet, so that’s a problem, but other than that it’s in a pretty workable state.

I’ll have to do a more comprehensive post about the program and how it works in the future, but I’m still not exactly sure how public I want to make it. It’s pretty limited in terms of UI- It outputs operation instructions into a  .txt file, and there’s some information that comes out in the terminal- so it’s not super friendly to folks that aren’t familiar with programming interfaces already. I’m also what might I call a very functional programmer, so even if someone wanted to use a program that does what mine does, they would almost definitely be better off doing it on their own. But it runs fast, and it does do what I set out to do, which is more than I was sort of expecting when I set out to write it.

A pretty basic outline of what my program does is this: We have two parts. The first part is just geometric instructions, and in fact is what I call a “style” of sweater. I could write different ones in the future, that have different shapes and designs, etc. In fact, I already have two, but we’ll get there. The second part does all of the hard work. It imports the first module, uses body measurements and fabric data (Input information) to get a geometric pattern (In inches or cm), which it then translates into knitting information (In stitches and rows). From there, it writes a series of operator instructions to a .txt file that I can then use to knit a sweater to the dimensions given. It also will estimate the total weight of yarn that knitting this sweater would take, so I can order the right amount and make sure I have enough before starting, which is a great cost- and time-saving measure.

std001 and std002

I’ve sort of built a naming convention for sweater styles. As I mentioned, I have two right now! The first one is just the version I had in an Excel spreadsheet, using the same math and whatnot. The code is horrendous, because it was just adapted directly, and I really only bothered so I could test the rest of my code while I was writing it. This is a pretty standard style of sweater, so I named the Python module std001.

The next step was designing/programming/etc. a style just for the Python system I’d built, which by the design of the system was supposed to be really easy- and it was! That’s what building infrastructure for yourself does, folks! This new design also has another significant feature: It takes into account a total of three width measurements, so it’s a bit more fitted!

Sweater 4

I have some acrylic yarn that is enough to make one more sweater. I am really excited to test out my std002 style, so I’m looking for volunteers (among my housemates, sorry!) to submit measurements and get a free sweater! Once I do that, it’s all building a standardized form for folks to put in orders on Etsy, and I can start selling sweaters to folks! I’m really excited to make Sweater 4 because it’ll be my first sweater that’s made for someone that is not me, and I haven’t gotten to use my machine for a while, and I like doing that.

Stay tuned for more updates / details!
Cheers,
Rowan