Off Topic getting Patterns in braille!!

David, who is blind, reads this newsgroup sporadically so he may or not see your request. If he doesn't respond in a day or two, I could send him an email to see if he has any ideas. Although he knows how to knit, he mostly crochets and I don't think he actually uses patterns for his work. However, he may still know how to get them brailed.

Hi Angel Crafter,

As Jan wrote, I'm blind and crochet. However, Marjorie Arnott in Arizona does knit plus has books in braille and conputer text format, plus she can get patterns scanned and put into braille and computer format - books for knitting, crochet, cooking and more. I've bought several computer texts from her. Here's her website:

Linkname: MARJORIE'S BRAILLE KNITTING & CROCHET PATTERNS & RECIPES URL:

are also several email lists for blind and visually-impaired crafters, the ones I know about are listed on my website

David

Hi again Portia,

Regarding someone closer to you for printing out braille - is there an NFB office close to you? I would assume they'd have a braille printer there which they should help you to use or print out for you.

As for crocheting - granny squares were the first things I learned to crochet thirty three years ago when I was still sighted, and I still find them the easiest thing to crochet. Ask me about knitting though, I'd tell you to ask someone else lol! What kind of difficulty do you have specifically making granny squares? Is there someone close to you who can show you? If not, I can crochet a small one for you and mail it to you, send me your mailing address offlist if you'd like.

David Vancouver, B.C., Canada

I found out in college that I could make granny squares in the dark. I'm a major insomniac, so I kept a trash bag under my bed full of yarn. For Christmas, I presented my roommate with an afghan and she had no idea how I'd made it without her seeing it.

Tee hee, that'll teach her not to sweep under the bed when it's her turn to clean! :)

Once you get the hang of them, Portia, they're not that difficult. I can even make them when I'm totally brain-dead. If I were closer, I'd run over and show you.

-- Karen C - California

Finished 7/4/06 - needlepoint calendar canvas for August WIP: Getting all the UFOs done, July birthstone, Flowers of Hawaii (Jeanette Crews) for ME!!!, Farmers Market (TIAG#8) Retrieved from UFO pile: Marbek's Snow Angel LTR: Fireman's Prayer (#2), Amid Amish Life, Angel of Autumn, Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe

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Hi David and Karen.. Well, let me begin with Karen.. I was sitting here and laughing at your story on how you accomplished your christmas gift to your friend.. I don't think I could do that without having to really and I mean really hide the project.. David, I believe the closest NFB Office to me is about 30 mins from where I live.. Just outside of Los Angeles.. Umm!! Crocheting anything that is a square form in either SC or DC, I tend to start out with the right number of stitches, but after a while lol, my piece loses the amount I had originally had in the beginning.. Comes out like triangels.. lol My granny squares, I can't seemt o see the stitches to get the right shape to form them right.. I seem to do beter knitting and still having to re-aquaint myself with certain stitches if I forget them.. One of these days, I hope to have better patience with crocheting and being able to figure things out... My mom used to do a beautiful job of crocheting granny square b efore she got very sick.. She made lots of afghans and lap throws forpeople the she corresponded with online.. She now is unable to do these things as she has been sick for the last couple of years now. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and had a total hysterectomy done.. Bu now her memory and the fact that she needs lots of care and taken away from a lot of things she used to do.. Chemo had done a lot of things to her and the medication that was to help make her appetite stronger did not help. Anyway, I miss a lot of her but she is still here and we still communicate.. Just not having the mom I used to have gets me down.. So, I try to find strength in my groups and my Boyfriend Robert.. Plus, my strongest outlook I try to find is God.. But lately things have been hard on me.. Oh god.. I am babbling again.. Anyway, I thank you for your support in helping me out here.. I wil let you know how things go with my quest in my patterns being done for me.. God bless everyone..

Hi Karen,

lol! I take it from what you wrote that your roommate's not sweeping under the bed was indeed paid! - with an afghan! *cackle* What colors?

cheers,

David

Hi Portia,

You lose count of the number of stitches doing a granny square? - do you do clusters of dc3? If not, I can understand how it would be possible to accidentally decrease - I've done it myself many times!

You could turn your knack of turning squares into triangles into some kind of crochet art form - you know, like "squaring the circle" lol!

Best to you and your mom,

David

A blind friend of the family was dying of cancer, and tatted a bedspread while she was in the hospital. (Yes, you heard me right. Double bed size, hang to the floor on three sides, bedspread.) One of her doctors offered to buy it for some fantastic sum, but she knew this was the last one she'd make and refused all offers because she wanted her family to have something to remember her by.

Unfortunately, at the time, I was only 7 or 8 and not particularly interested in learning tatting. Ten years later, I wanted to learn but couldn't find anyone to teach me, so set out to learn from a book. I kept telling myself that if a blind woman could do it, I could certainly figure it out. It took a while, but I did finally get it right.

Which brings us back to your problem with crocheting ... the same one a lot of us had when we were starting out and finally got it right after a lot of practice. You're getting a decreasing triangle because you're forgetting to put a stitch into your turning chain of the row before. You can figure out where you're going wrong by making a very narrow practice piece with a number of stitches you can easily count (five or six is good). On each row, count the stitches you're making, and you'll quickly figure out which stitches should get a stitch in them to keep the stitch count the same from row to row.

As for granny squares, just keep telling yourself that a sighted person can do them with the lights out, and your fingers see better than mine do, so you can do it, too.

I use a single chain stitch between dc3 clusters on straight edges, and 3 chains on the corners. I've heard other variations from others in this group (rcty). David

Ask this group here:

will glady help you. Pam-Doggirl3

Hi Portia,

That web page is pretty new, two or three weeks at most. I asked some other blind crafters what groups there were and did quite a google search, those were the only groups I found. I don't know about other usenet groups besides rec.crafts.textiles.yarn which as I wrote on my site has mostly sighted readers and posters... you posted your question to a second group simultaneously - rec.crafts.textiles.needlework, which I hadn't known about previously. I'll do another search later when I've got time, there must be usenet groups specifically for blind people too.

Did you want me to mail you a granny square?

Cheers,

David

In a single word, lace.

Typically, you work with your thread wound on a shuttle, and tie knots in the end of the thread that's wrapped around your hand. There's only one stitch to learn, but there's a tricky maneuver required to do it right, and that's the part I couldn't get from the pictures in a book.

Hi Karen I had the same trouble getting the "flip" in tatting and found the only way to learn was to have someone show me, so I did a weekend course at a craft school in mid Wales. Very beautiful country and a very useful course taught by a lady called L:yn Morton, who has produced books of tatting patterns. She doesn't advocate the "flip" but a gentler technique. Her website is

http://www.tatt>> Fist of all, what is tating?

The problem was, none of the books ever said "flip the stitches". My best reading of them was "knot-knot, stitch is done", and then couldn't figure out why the ring wouldn't pull closed.

Then a dorm-mate's mom came to visit, and I'd heard she tatted, so I commented on my problem. Of course, neither of us had a shuttle on us at the moment, but all it took was Mrs. H asking "do you flip the stitches to the other thread?" Ummm noooooooooo. I didn't know I was supposed to.

She offered to show me when they got back from lunch, but by the time they got back I already had it figured out just from her verbal explanation to flex and pop.

When I teach, I use a red thread and a white thread, and first set the student to making a chain. The mnemonic is "if you see red when you're done with the stitch, you're going to 'see red' when you try to close your ring." When they show me a couple inches of all-white chain (after the inevitable candy cane stripes at the beginning), then I show them how to loop around and make a ring, which closes properly the first time because we can see immediately when they make a mistake and go over how to correct it.

Great trick Karen, I wish someone had shown me that when I started Love & higs Christine

Why are the subjects "patterns in Braille" and tatting marked as "OT" ?

Aar>

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