Getting started!
The first thing you'll want to decide when using Knitted Online is whether to create some knitwear from scratch or whether to browse the shop for something that's already been designed by another user.
Once you're in the right section (browse or create) choose the item you wish to customise.
At this point I should add that if you just want to pick an item from the shop and buy it as it is then just pop it in your basket and go straight to the checkout with it - don't worry about any of this talk of customisation.
If you've decided to create something from scratch then you'll go straight through to the page where you create your knitwear, but if you're browsing other people's designs you will need to click the 'customise' button in the product view.
Create your masterpiece!
So here you are where it all happens, on the left of the page you will need to give your design a name and an optional short description. The short description is more useful if you're going to make your design public for others to buy, use it to let people know if you've created any matching items, also put in any keywords so people can find your design when they search for specific things eg. floral, stripey, Taunton High FC, world's best dad etc.
Also on the left-hand-side is option to make your design public or private. Check the box to make it public and let anyone buy your design, you can earn 5% commission on each order. Or you can create one of a kind pieces that no-one else will have, in which case you'll need to keep your design private.
And now, onto the fun part.
The editing tools!
On the right-hand-side you'll see the area where you can create or customise your design. There are 4 tools you can use to do this and I'll take you through them all so you can get started:
Perhaps the best tool if you are designing from scratch is the image upload tool. Do you already know how to use the program paint, or photoshop, or any other drawing tools on your computer? What might be easiest is to create your design using the program you've used before. Look out for what size to make the image for each of the products (it will tell you if you hover over the image upload tool). Then you can upload your image and tweak it if needs be using the other tools. You can also use this tool to upload any other photo or image as long as its the right size.
If you want to customise an existing design the following three tools may come in most useful:
The first is a stitch-by-stitch colouring-in tool. Select this tool and you can start drawing immediately. As long as you hold down the mouse and move around the design area the pen will colour in the stitches.
Row fill works the same way as the stitch-by-stitch except you colour whole rows at a time. Click individual rows to colour them one by one or hold the mouse down to fill multiple rows at a time.
To use the rectangular fill tool you'll need to click and drag out the rectangle to the size you want and then release the mouse.
The colour pickers!
As well as the tools you'll see two coloured boxes, and you'll notice one is highlighted. The highlighted colour is your active one. To select the other colour just single click on it. To change either of the colours, double click on the colour and the palette will appear for you to choose from. As the knitting can only use two colours of wool, changing a colour here will change every stitch in the design where that colour has been used.
The other tools!
You've also got a scroll button to move about your design and a zoom in / zoom out button so you can work on a specific area or view the whole piece of knitting. The undo and redo buttons next to these will allow you to undo and redo the last 10 things you've done.
Don't forget once you've created or customised your knitting you must save the design, this will allow you to preview it as it will appear once knitted.
HAPPY KNITTING!
