Sunday, June 3, 2012

Hours and Hours

This post is coming to you from a bleary-eyed knitter who has spent hours and hours reading and writing about knitting and zero time actually knitting anything! However, this knitter is also triumphant because she fixed the Major PDF Problem that has been plaguing her since she first tried uploading patterns to Ravelry six whole months ago. The issue was that the deviously simple-seeming "save to PDF" option from Microsoft Word did not work for her. It worked, but when Mac users or some Ipad users tried reading her pattern, it came out looking like a rabid raccoon with an anger problem smeared virtual ink all over the virtual pages. It wasn't cool. So then she tried pdf converters like CutePDF and PrimoPDF and they did ok for creating a readable pdf file, but the files also were gigantically huge or had photos that were pixelated and gross. So then she changed her entire pattern-writing system to use PowerPoint instead (easier to manipulate text boxes because the new Word is weird) and tried various photo editing software to get her pictures to look better in her pdfs. Failure after failure occured and she NEARLY GAVE UP, nearly accepted having slightly crappy photos in her patterns when she tried to google it in a slightly different way-- and found her answer. Microsoft products cannot embed Open Type fonts into pdfs, only True Type fonts, and one of the fonts she was trying to use was Open Type. (Not that she has any idea what that actually means.) But this intrepid knitter loved her font, it was on her blog, she didn't want to change it, she loved consistency and prettiness far too much. So, she went on an epic World Wide Web quest and at long last found a True Type version of her beloved font. A few clicks later and her Beribboned Wrists pattern was updated and looking gorgeous.

Worsted-weight version using SG Zaftig Bugga
The pattern has been updated to include a DK-weight version since the original yarn used was discontinued. It has also been substantially beautified and now includes an option to add thumbs so you can have fingerless mitts instead of wristwarmers, if you so desire.

DK-weight version using SG Traveller
The suggested DK-weight yarn is sold by The Verdant Gryphon, Cephalopod Yarns, and Dragonfly Fibers but there are many yarns that would do nicely, including Malabrigo Worsted or Malabrigo Rios (which knits up very DK-ish sometimes). Under normal circumstances, links would be included, but this knitter is bushwacked so please google those yarn companies yourselves to find their shops.

Quite frankly, this knitter worked so hard on this pattern that she is referring to herself in the 3rd person so you know things have gotten a little loopy. She hopes you all download it (it's free!), knit it, enjoy it, link to it on Ravelry or send pictures via email because she would love to see your creations and rejoice. Now this knitter is going to bed--and for the love of all that is good and woolly, please do not tell her if the pdf is not working. She might not be able to take it.

(Just kidding, you should definitely tell me.)

2 comments:

  1. Good to know about the open type fonts. And WOW Sounds like you spent A LOT of time on that, I am so glad it worked out for you! Now go rest, you deserve it!

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