If you need tips on taking tutorial pictures, check out my post over here!
There are three major things you can do within your pictures to make a technique crystal clear:
1. Differentiate certain stitches and bits of yarn using color.
This tip has proven itself the most helpful for me personally. Let me show you what I mean using a picture from the tutorial in my upcoming pattern:
Ok. Right here you're supposed to pass the second stitch from the tip of the left needle over the stitch closest to the tip of the left needle and then take that second stitch off the needle tip. Here's the problem: that's a lot of words. Left needle tip over second stitch from tip of needle first stitch left needle off over what? Exactly. Let's see how we can remedy this.
(ignore the "rs" in the corner... we'll get to that) Ah ha! What if I just said, "Pass the blue stitch over the purple stitch and off the needle"? That sounds SO much more concise! After all, this really is a simple step, but if you only read that first explanation you'd never know it.
So how did I do that?
I used this fancy little tool within Pic Monkey called "Lip Tint." This tool is meant for touching up faces, but we're going to use it a bit differently.
Go into Pic Monkey and upload your photo.
Click on the little lipstick tube and then on Lip Tint. Now, you can use their preset colors OR you can click on the little rainbow to create custom tint colors (I'd suggest the custom setting).
Next, select a color that contrasts with the yarn in your picture, adjust your brush size so it fits within the yarn strand you're highlighting, and go to town! You can also click the eraser to clean up the edges if needed.
That awkward moment when you use Pic Monkey to edit a screenshot of Pic Monkey.
Since you're not in the room with the person you're instructing, you can't just reach over and tell them what they're supposed to be looking at. Arrows are like the digital version of, "Oh no no no, I'm talking about this stitch darling." Pic Monkey has some super cute arrows available in the "Overlays" section (represented by that butterfly icon) and some additional ones available to premium members.
You can even use the premium arrows to illustrate how to wrap the yarn around the needle, like so:
Or, use two of the arrows within the "Dashed and Lined" overlay category to make a little fancy bracket thingy.
Use those arrows to your advantage!
3. Add text.
This is a pretty obvious one, but I want to focus in on two major aspects of text:
1) Marking the right and wrong sides.
In each of the pictures for my tutorial, I put two little letters up in the left hand corner: either "RS" or "WS" for "right side" or "wrong side." I find this is SUUUUUUPER helpful when working short little rows where you have to turn your work every few stitches. It really keeps things all mentally sorted out for both you as the pattern writer and of course your audience while they're knitting your pattern for the first time.
2) Showing which stitch is what.
Text is also useful with arrows to (literally) point out which stitch is where and how it should look.
I'm a big fan of over-explaining when writing patterns. Not to the point that it does more harm than good, but I find the more I state the obvious in each step, the easier the pattern is to follow.
Here's a good example of pointing out which stitch is which. After telling people to kfb then purl, I can give them this picture. Then they can compare what they have to the picture, and have no doubt that they're on the right track.
Ok guys! Those are my tips on tutorial editing. I hope this post was helpful!
See you Friday with my weekly goal overview.
Grace
