While working on Scott’s Thermal Cap, the brim, the band around the head, involved 32 discrete stitches per row. The pattern I was using demurred on chaining up the side and instead relied on the natural height of the SCTS to provide the height required as rows were added. Because the chain was omitted, every stitch requires attention, because usually when a chain appears on the side, it “uses up” whatever stitch was next in line, and so you customarily have to skip “where you should go” for the “next spot”. Without the chain on the side, progress is slower, the weave is thicker, and counting becomes rather picky. You want to make sure you have 32 in each row, lest you have decreases where there shouldn’t be any, and your hat comes out looking obviously wrong.
There are a lot of tools for maintaining counts in Crochet. Little plastic barrel counters, clickers, and a few apps for the iPhone. There was one of these apps, that among all the other features also had a verbal input mechanism. The app was updated and the verbal input mechanism was deprecated for Voice Control in iOS.
I have another app, called MultiTimer, in it are counters with audio feedback when you tap them. I had been using this app to count stitches in my work, but its a little annoying to have my hands on the work and then reach over to tap the phone. So I did a little poking around:
- Settings
- Accessibility
- Voice Control (turn it on, it downloads extra iOS components)
- ON: Show Confirmation, Show Hints, Overlay: Item Numbers. OFF the rest.
- Back to Settings, then to Control Center
- Customize Controls
- Add Accessibility Shortcuts
- Out to Home Screen
So, when I am working on a project, I plug the phone in (since Voice Control is a battery pig), start MultiTimer, switch to my Crochet panel where I have set up all my counters. Then I swipe up from the bottom, tap Accessibility Shortcuts icon, tap on Voice Control, then swipe down to hide the Control Center panel. Overlaid on top of all the screen items are little shaded numbers, so I focus in on the counter that I care about, “Stitch Count” and then I can say “Single Tap” to advance the counter, or “Tap 6” to clear the counter, or “Tap 4” to decrease the counter. That enables me to keep my hands on my work, and my eyes, and just say clearly what I want and the phone makes a little click sound when it does what I want. That way I can concentrate on the work, and then look at the display for the count. When my work session is done, I swipe up from the bottom, tap the Accessibility Shortcut icon, turn off Voice Control, and exit the MultiTimer app. Done and done. This way I can keep my mind focused on the work, I don’t lose count due to interruptions or cats, and it makes my phone do one singular task really well. After I started using this feature, I took back a little bit of the gripes I had previously issued against iOS, just a few. 🙂