Tori Machen

Crocheting & Coding: they're more similar than you think!

Many of us have hobbies that we enjoy outside of our careers in tech. For me, that is amigurumi, the art of crocheting stuffed creatures. What if I told you that amigurumi is extremely similar to software development? Join me in exploring the intersection between crocheting amigurumi and developing software. We’ll look at the key similarities between these two crafts, and I’ll share how crocheting has helped me become a better software developer. You’ll walk away inspired to connect your own hobbies to your role in tech or find a new creative hobby (like crochet)!

RubyConf 2022

00:00:00.000 ready for takeoff
00:00:16.920 hello everyone thank you so much for
00:00:20.039 coming out here today I'm so excited for
00:00:22.020 this opportunity to share all my
00:00:23.820 thoughts with you my name is Tori Machin
00:00:26.699 and I traveled here from Des Moines Iowa
00:00:29.119 a little bit about me I love bunnies I
00:00:32.460 have two rabbits at home I love playing
00:00:34.860 cozy games on my switch and my favorite
00:00:37.680 hobby is designing amigurumi
00:00:42.120 if you're interested in connecting with
00:00:43.920 me after this presentation you can find
00:00:45.899 me on LinkedIn at Victoria machine
00:00:48.059 to connect with me professionally I also
00:00:51.180 have a Twitter account that I don't go
00:00:52.680 on too often but I'll try to get back to
00:00:55.140 you if you reach out to me there
00:00:57.300 and I share a lot about my crochet hobby
00:00:59.640 on my YouTube and Instagram at Toy Story
00:01:02.100 creations and I love making new friends
00:01:04.440 so if you see me in the hallways roaming
00:01:06.720 around Ruby comp feel free to stop me
00:01:08.520 and say hi
00:01:11.820 So today we're going to talk about the
00:01:13.979 similarities between crocheting
00:01:15.780 amigurumi and software development and
00:01:18.420 how it can be important to make
00:01:19.799 connections between your hobbies and
00:01:22.020 your career in Tech
00:01:25.799 so as an overview we'll start by
00:01:28.020 defining crochet amigurumi and software
00:01:30.720 development just to make sure that
00:01:32.040 everyone's on the same page
00:01:33.659 then I'll discuss some of the
00:01:35.159 similarities that I've noticed between
00:01:36.600 crocheting and software development
00:01:39.299 I'll follow that up by sharing how my
00:01:41.460 hobby of crochet has helped influence my
00:01:43.500 career
00:01:44.700 and finally I'll share some resources
00:01:46.920 for learning crochet if you're
00:01:48.479 interested in picking up a new creative
00:01:50.220 Hobby
00:01:51.659 My Hope Is that after this talk it'll
00:01:54.600 inspire you to make connections between
00:01:56.280 your hobbies and your career in Tech as
00:01:58.680 well
00:02:00.960 so what is crochet
00:02:03.119 crocheting is a fiber crafting technique
00:02:05.340 that uses a crochet hook
00:02:07.560 to create a series of loops with yarn
00:02:10.440 thread or other material in order to
00:02:13.560 create a fabric
00:02:15.420 it's a very versatile craft and can be
00:02:17.580 used to create a variety of different
00:02:19.260 items like hats blankets and Cardigans
00:02:22.200 and the list goes on and on
00:02:26.160 and to get a little bit more specific
00:02:28.080 the style of crocheting that I love to
00:02:30.540 do is called amigurumi
00:02:33.080 amigurumi originated in Japan and it's
00:02:35.580 the art of crocheting or knitting small
00:02:37.620 creatures
00:02:39.060 typically when you make amigurumi you
00:02:41.040 crochet in the round or a continuous
00:02:43.379 spiral shape making various crochet
00:02:45.720 stitches with yarn in order to form
00:02:48.300 three dimensional pieces that you later
00:02:50.519 stuff with fiberfill stuffing
00:02:53.160 and you sew together to form a stuffed
00:02:56.700 animal a doll or whatever else your
00:02:59.519 imagination can come up with
00:03:02.040 if we look at the photo in the bottom
00:03:03.840 left we can see the signature spiral
00:03:06.780 technique that amigurumi uses
00:03:09.239 and if we take a look at the photos on
00:03:10.980 the right we can see some various 3D
00:03:13.860 pieces that I've crocheted in order to
00:03:16.440 create a stuffed animal panda
00:03:19.319 so when I talk about crocheting in the
00:03:21.060 context of this talk I'm referring to
00:03:23.879 the Army gurumi style of crochet because
00:03:26.220 that's what I'm most familiar with but a
00:03:29.220 lot of the principles that I mentioned
00:03:30.720 in this talk can also apply to other
00:03:32.459 styles of crochet as well
00:03:35.459 so a little bit of background on my
00:03:37.200 hobby I've been crocheting on and off
00:03:39.480 since I was about 15 years old and I
00:03:41.760 started designing my own crochet
00:03:43.140 patterns in 2015. and all the pictures
00:03:46.019 you've seen in the past couple of slides
00:03:48.000 and the rest of the presentation are
00:03:49.500 examples of different amigurumi that
00:03:51.180 I've crocheted
00:03:52.440 specifically this frog picture that you
00:03:55.500 see in the bottom right is my very first
00:03:57.920 amigurumi that I've ever made it was
00:04:00.239 supposed to be really small cute and
00:04:02.040 round but somehow it ended up oval
00:04:04.440 shaped
00:04:07.560 so now that we've defined crocheting and
00:04:09.540 amigurumi I wanted to take a moment to
00:04:11.519 Define software development just so that
00:04:13.319 everyone's on the same page
00:04:15.120 software development is a process that
00:04:17.280 programmers use to build computer
00:04:18.540 programs and applications
00:04:20.579 it involves a range of activities
00:04:22.440 including creating designing programming
00:04:25.680 testing deploying and maintaining
00:04:28.259 software
00:04:31.080 so I started experimenting with code in
00:04:33.240 2016. shortly after that I attended an
00:04:36.540 online boot camp where I was first
00:04:37.860 introduced to Ruby
00:04:40.080 I started my first software development
00:04:41.820 job in 2018 and now I am currently a
00:04:44.940 software engineer at a startup called
00:04:46.320 Free Will where we're on a mission to
00:04:48.180 raise one trillion dollars for high
00:04:49.979 impact nonprofits
00:04:52.500 foreign
00:04:54.979 hobby a handful of years before I
00:04:57.479 started learning about software
00:04:59.040 development
00:05:00.300 and as I was learning how to develop
00:05:02.220 software and I got deeper into my career
00:05:04.620 I kept noticing the similarities between
00:05:07.020 my crochet Hobby and my software
00:05:09.540 development career
00:05:10.979 and you might be sitting in your chair
00:05:12.419 right now thinking to yourself but Tori
00:05:15.180 I'm a software developer I write code
00:05:17.340 every single day and never have I felt
00:05:19.680 like I was creating one of your
00:05:20.940 crocheted stuffed animals
00:05:22.979 so what could these two activities
00:05:24.539 possibly have in common
00:05:27.780 the first similarity that I want to talk
00:05:29.759 about is design
00:05:32.280 before I start working on a new software
00:05:34.320 application or building out a new
00:05:36.000 feature for an existing app time is
00:05:38.460 spent deciding how the final project
00:05:40.380 should look and feel like to the user
00:05:43.380 oftentimes this means creating mock-ups
00:05:45.780 or storyboards that developers use as
00:05:48.360 guidelines to what an application or
00:05:50.699 feature should look like in the end
00:05:53.880 a similar thing happens when I'm
00:05:55.800 designing amigurumi
00:05:57.900 when I'm starting on a new project I
00:06:00.180 spend time up front drawing out a sketch
00:06:02.759 of what I'd like my end result to look
00:06:04.380 like
00:06:05.160 I consider things like what types of
00:06:07.620 animals does my audience want to see
00:06:09.180 next what are the different pieces that
00:06:11.100 I'm going to need to crochet to create
00:06:13.259 this new stuffed animal and what are the
00:06:15.840 proportions that I'll need for each of
00:06:17.340 these pieces
00:06:19.380 thinking about visual design is very
00:06:21.479 important in software development and
00:06:23.280 dummy grooming design in both of these
00:06:25.620 cases if we don't take initial time up
00:06:28.139 front to mock up our end product we
00:06:30.479 could find ourselves building something
00:06:31.979 that is either not what our user wanted
00:06:34.319 or not what we originally pictured that
00:06:36.960 we were going to make
00:06:40.620 another connection that I've made
00:06:42.600 between my crochet Hobby and software
00:06:45.240 development was that crochet patterns
00:06:47.160 are surprisingly like computer programs
00:06:50.400 this was one of the first similarities
00:06:51.900 that I noticed when I started learning
00:06:53.400 about computer programming
00:06:56.940 so this is a snippet of text from a
00:06:58.800 crochet pattern to make a chick
00:07:01.740 a crochet pattern is a series of
00:07:03.720 instructions typically read from top to
00:07:05.880 bottom that tell the crocheter what
00:07:07.919 steps to follow to create the end result
00:07:09.900 in amigurumi's case of a stuffed
00:07:12.300 creature
00:07:14.520 on the flip side computer programs are a
00:07:17.699 sequence of instructions or operations
00:07:19.520 usually also read from top to bottom
00:07:22.020 that tell a computer what actions to
00:07:24.060 perform generally with some sort of
00:07:25.979 outcome
00:07:28.259 so both crochet patterns and programs
00:07:31.199 are instructions to output something
00:07:33.000 whether it be the cute body of a chick
00:07:36.060 stuffed animal or a friendly message of
00:07:38.280 hello world to the user
00:07:42.300 they also both have syntax
00:07:45.180 when we're developing software we use
00:07:47.520 programming languages to write our
00:07:49.139 programs in like Ruby
00:07:51.060 these programming languages have their
00:07:53.039 own syntax or set of rules that
00:07:55.380 determine what words and symbols mean
00:07:57.539 and how we can use those words and
00:07:59.340 symbols to tell the computer that's
00:08:01.080 executing our code what to do
00:08:04.199 some examples of syntax that we see in
00:08:06.120 Ruby are deaf and end to define the
00:08:08.940 start and end of a method
00:08:13.800 so here I have a snippet of a crochet
00:08:15.840 pattern on the right
00:08:17.699 when you take a closer look at this
00:08:19.440 pattern would you be able to understand
00:08:21.180 what it means
00:08:22.919 if you're not familiar with crocheting
00:08:24.900 this might almost look like a foreign
00:08:26.639 language to you
00:08:28.080 that's because crochet patterns also
00:08:30.419 have their own special syntax or shared
00:08:32.880 language across a crocheted community
00:08:35.339 they're written with various
00:08:36.539 abbreviations and terms that together
00:08:38.760 from instructions on what the crocheter
00:08:41.099 needs to do
00:08:43.860 so I've listed some of the abbreviations
00:08:45.899 of this pattern on the left side so for
00:08:49.260 example SC means single crochet in
00:08:52.140 crochet terms and it defines a specific
00:08:54.600 Stitch that the crocheter needs to
00:08:56.459 create using their yarn and hook
00:09:02.040 and if we dive deeper into the syntax of
00:09:04.980 both crocheting and coding we can find
00:09:07.019 even more similarities for example they
00:09:10.260 both have loops
00:09:12.060 when I'm writing a program I use a loop
00:09:14.220 when I want a series of instructions to
00:09:16.019 be repeated until a certain condition is
00:09:17.940 met
00:09:18.899 in this example I just have a very
00:09:20.820 simple Loop that will print out hello a
00:09:23.100 total of five times
00:09:26.399 crochet patterns also make use of loops
00:09:30.000 let's take a look at our crochet pattern
00:09:31.800 example again and focus on one of our
00:09:33.600 rows Row three
00:09:35.519 and Row three of our pattern it's
00:09:37.440 telling us that we're going to alternate
00:09:39.000 between single crocheting and increasing
00:09:41.100 a total of six times
00:09:43.740 a single crochet and an increase are
00:09:45.720 both two types of stitches that we can
00:09:47.279 make when we're crocheting
00:09:49.980 so instead of writing out all of the
00:09:51.600 steps like we see in the top right of
00:09:53.519 our slide we can use square brackets and
00:09:56.160 an X to denote that there are some
00:09:57.839 repeatable instructions anything inside
00:10:00.420 the brackets is what we need to repeat
00:10:02.220 and the number to the right of our X is
00:10:05.040 how many times we need to repeat those
00:10:06.540 instructions
00:10:08.399 so you can see that we can rewrite and
00:10:10.680 simplify Row 3 on the top side of our
00:10:13.500 slide to make use of our Loop syntax
00:10:19.560 so we can take what we've learned so far
00:10:21.300 and translate a snippet of our crochet
00:10:23.100 pattern into some simple code
00:10:25.320 if we take a look at the highlighted
00:10:26.880 line in this pattern it's telling us
00:10:28.620 that in Row 5 we're going to increase
00:10:30.779 for the first five stitches and then
00:10:33.000 we'll single crochet for the next two
00:10:34.740 stitches
00:10:36.420 and once we've completed that row you
00:10:38.160 can see in parentheses we should have a
00:10:39.540 total of 12 stitches
00:10:42.120 on the right side I started writing a
00:10:44.220 method to create a tail for my amigurumi
00:10:46.260 project
00:10:47.640 as an example for Row 5 we need to
00:10:50.100 create a total of 12 stitches for this
00:10:52.200 row
00:10:53.040 sorry I mean seven stitches for this row
00:10:55.380 we'll iterate through the range of one
00:10:57.540 to our total Stitch count and call an
00:11:00.120 increase method or a single crochet
00:11:01.800 method based on the result of our
00:11:03.420 conditional which in this case is
00:11:05.700 whatever Stitch we're on
00:11:08.220 so really a pattern is just a program
00:11:12.240 another similarity is testing
00:11:15.000 as a software developer testing is a
00:11:17.220 huge step in creating Reliable Software
00:11:20.940 software developers write and run tasks
00:11:23.220 to ensure that a section of their
00:11:25.320 application that they're building is
00:11:27.120 behaving as intended
00:11:29.100 here's a snippet of code a calculator
00:11:30.920 with a method to sum two numbers
00:11:33.480 together we can see that when the method
00:11:35.880 is called with those two numbers those
00:11:38.399 numbers are added together and here I'm
00:11:40.079 just explicitly returning the resulting
00:11:42.300 summed value
00:11:44.640 a developer can write a unit test to
00:11:46.860 verify the sum method is adding the
00:11:48.959 given numbers correctly
00:11:50.459 so here on the right I have a simple
00:11:52.260 test that creates our calculator and
00:11:55.079 calls the sum method with numbers one
00:11:57.660 and two and asserts that the result is
00:12:00.660 three
00:12:03.120 so just like when I'm developing
00:12:04.560 software when I'm writing and following
00:12:06.600 crochet patterns I can utilize similar
00:12:09.120 testing strategies to make sure that I'm
00:12:11.399 crocheting the correct thing
00:12:13.560 one of the worst things that happens
00:12:15.360 when I'm crocheting is when I miss a
00:12:17.279 stitch somewhere in my project and my
00:12:19.260 total Stitch count for my row is off I
00:12:22.320 have to stop what I'm doing and try and
00:12:23.940 find and fix my mistake
00:12:27.180 luckily each row in my pattern lists the
00:12:29.519 expected number of stitches that I
00:12:31.440 should have once that row is completed
00:12:33.779 If I complete a row and compare my
00:12:35.640 actual Stitch count to the expected
00:12:37.680 Stitch count as seen on my pattern and
00:12:40.140 they don't match I know that I failed my
00:12:42.480 expectations this is just like failing
00:12:45.000 an expectation of a unit test
00:12:47.579 so even though I don't have a computer
00:12:49.440 when I'm crocheting I can apply testing
00:12:52.139 strategies to my work
00:12:53.880 whenever I'm designing patterns I always
00:12:55.920 make sure that I add the expected Stitch
00:12:57.779 count to the end of each row as if I
00:12:59.579 were writing a unit test
00:13:02.880 in addition to tests that software
00:13:04.740 developers create while they're writing
00:13:06.240 code to verify that that code is working
00:13:08.519 as expected
00:13:10.500 software development can also include an
00:13:12.300 aspect of user acceptance testing
00:13:15.060 when you think about user acceptance
00:13:16.620 testing in software development world we
00:13:19.200 usually think of a software developer
00:13:20.820 handing off some completed code to
00:13:23.339 someone else who then runs some tests on
00:13:26.519 the software to verify that there are no
00:13:28.380 mistakes no bugs and that the software
00:13:30.480 is working as expected
00:13:32.639 the crochet Community has something
00:13:34.440 similar
00:13:35.639 when writing it when a pattern designer
00:13:38.339 has finished writing a new pattern they
00:13:40.500 often hire a pattern tester to follow
00:13:43.139 the pattern instructions before the
00:13:45.240 pattern is released and published to the
00:13:46.920 public
00:13:47.880 these pattern testers make sure that the
00:13:49.980 pattern is written in a way that's
00:13:51.240 understandable
00:13:52.860 and they verify that there are no
00:13:55.139 mistakes in the pattern and confirm that
00:13:57.300 the crocheted piece that they ended up
00:13:58.920 with is what they expected to end up
00:14:01.320 with
00:14:04.860 another similarity is refactoring
00:14:08.040 in software development once we've
00:14:10.440 written functioning code we usually take
00:14:12.839 time to refactor our code refactoring is
00:14:15.600 restructuring your code without changing
00:14:17.399 our code's Behavior
00:14:19.019 oftentimes we refactor code to remove
00:14:21.720 duplication to make our code easier to
00:14:24.120 understand and more reusable and
00:14:26.639 ultimately to make our code clean
00:14:30.420 when a crochet pattern designer is
00:14:32.339 writing a pattern they also take steps
00:14:34.620 to refactor their pattern
00:14:36.600 so here's a picture on the left of the
00:14:39.240 first draft of my amigurumi pattern for
00:14:41.519 a Pikmin
00:14:43.500 you can see that this first draft
00:14:45.120 honestly looks super messy it's riddled
00:14:48.060 with changes lines are crossed off
00:14:50.220 there's duplication everywhere and there
00:14:52.440 are loads of comments
00:14:54.480 but once I finish writing the pattern
00:14:56.279 and I'm happy with how my end result
00:14:58.320 looks like
00:15:00.360 I take time to go back and type out my
00:15:02.639 pattern nicely this includes refactoring
00:15:05.339 my pattern to remove duplication by
00:15:07.740 using that crochet Loop syntax that we
00:15:09.720 talked about earlier
00:15:13.260 but one of the most wholesome
00:15:14.579 similarities between crocheting and
00:15:16.680 coding is that they both have welcoming
00:15:18.420 and supportive communities
00:15:21.600 when I was first learning how to code my
00:15:23.760 coding boot camp recommended that I
00:15:25.800 joined various platforms like Twitter
00:15:27.360 and Linkedin to engage with people in
00:15:29.820 Tech
00:15:30.600 it was awesome to find communities of
00:15:32.579 people who are learning how to code just
00:15:34.260 like me
00:15:35.760 similarly I found that Instagram is a
00:15:38.279 great place for aspiring crochet artists
00:15:40.560 to make friends and find support
00:15:42.959 there are so many crochet artists
00:15:44.519 posting pictures and videos of their
00:15:47.339 projects that they're working on hosting
00:15:49.560 virtual crochet events online and
00:15:53.160 supporting each other in the comments
00:15:55.260 sections and I've made some amazing
00:15:57.420 friends from all over the world on that
00:15:59.820 platform who help support each other in
00:16:02.339 their amiguremy design Journeys
00:16:05.639 meetups and conferences right now we're
00:16:08.160 all learning sharing and networking with
00:16:09.959 each other here at rubyconf a Tech
00:16:12.480 conference surrounding topics related to
00:16:14.040 the Ruby programming language
00:16:16.139 in the crochet Community believe it or
00:16:18.300 not there are also conferences and
00:16:20.639 Summits that people attend to learn
00:16:22.380 about crocheting and other related
00:16:24.240 topics like how to start your own
00:16:25.800 crochet business
00:16:27.540 I've been to a virtual crochet Summit
00:16:29.279 before and it was awesome how opening
00:16:31.139 and welcoming the people were at the
00:16:33.300 conference
00:16:34.620 and it really reminded me a lot of
00:16:36.540 rubyconf
00:16:39.300 one of my favorite similarities though
00:16:41.220 is how generous both communities are
00:16:43.620 with providing free online learning
00:16:45.660 resources
00:16:47.220 when I was first learning how to crochet
00:16:48.959 amigurumi I used online blogs and
00:16:51.720 YouTube tutorials to help teach me the
00:16:53.820 perfect crochet techniques and how to
00:16:56.040 make specific amigurumi stuffed animals
00:16:58.620 it was great because they made the
00:17:00.300 barrier of entry for learning how to
00:17:02.759 crochet lower and it gave me a great
00:17:04.679 starting point as a beginner
00:17:06.660 the same goes for the software
00:17:08.220 development community
00:17:09.600 after I first got interested in learning
00:17:11.699 about software development I went online
00:17:13.439 to find free resources like free code
00:17:15.480 camp and the Odin project where I could
00:17:17.579 learn the basics of programming and
00:17:19.439 decide if it was something that I wanted
00:17:21.299 to shift my career to
00:17:23.339 there are even tons of developers out
00:17:25.260 there sharing their knowledge and
00:17:26.459 experiences on personal Tech blogs
00:17:30.299 so by now you might be asking Tori we
00:17:32.940 can see that there are some similarities
00:17:34.260 between software development and
00:17:35.880 crocheting amigurumi but why should we
00:17:37.980 care
00:17:39.480 I've learned that making connections
00:17:40.980 between my hobby and my career in Tech
00:17:42.900 has helped me become a better software
00:17:44.820 developer
00:17:47.460 for one designing amigurumi has made me
00:17:50.340 better at recognizing patterns
00:17:52.740 a lot of the amigurumi designs that I
00:17:55.200 create follow similar structural
00:17:57.000 patterns for making different shapes
00:17:58.679 such as cones cubes and some cylinders
00:18:03.480 I have to I just have to modify these
00:18:06.120 different structures to fit the
00:18:07.799 specifications of my design
00:18:09.900 and I've gotten really good at
00:18:11.220 identifying when and where I should use
00:18:13.320 those various structural patterns
00:18:16.440 software development also involves a lot
00:18:19.080 of different patterns like design
00:18:20.760 patterns
00:18:22.080 since crocheting has helped improve my
00:18:24.360 pattern recognition skills already it's
00:18:26.640 been easier for me to recognize when and
00:18:28.740 where to use software design patterns
00:18:30.539 and how to tweak them in order to fit my
00:18:32.640 use case
00:18:34.080 this has helped me become a more
00:18:35.520 efficient developer
00:18:38.880 crocheting has also helped improve my
00:18:41.220 creative thinking
00:18:42.600 when I'm designing a new amigurumi
00:18:44.580 character I literally have to start from
00:18:46.740 a blank page
00:18:48.240 I have to exercise the creative side of
00:18:50.340 my brain to come up with new ideas and
00:18:53.100 designs that I think people will love
00:18:56.220 after I've decided what my amigurumi
00:18:58.559 design will look like I have to be
00:19:00.720 creative with how I write the pattern to
00:19:02.460 make the various shapes and sizes that
00:19:04.140 my design is calling for
00:19:06.840 in software development a lot of times
00:19:09.059 we think devs have to be rigid and
00:19:10.860 mathematical logical and just follow the
00:19:13.140 instructions that they're given
00:19:15.600 however great software developers have
00:19:18.120 to be able to come up with new and
00:19:19.620 innovative solutions to problems
00:19:22.080 they need a sense of creativity to
00:19:24.179 discover solutions that no one have made
00:19:25.980 before
00:19:27.720 by exercising my brain in a creative way
00:19:30.360 using my crochet hobby I'm able to use
00:19:33.240 that creative mindset to think of new
00:19:35.039 ideas new improvements to projects that
00:19:37.020 I'm working on and various solutions to
00:19:39.720 problems when I'm developing software
00:19:41.460 because I've already trained my brain to
00:19:43.559 think outside of the box
00:19:47.640 crocheting has also helped me become a
00:19:49.919 better teacher and mentor
00:19:51.960 not only do I love designing crochet
00:19:54.240 patterns but I also love helping others
00:19:56.580 learn how to crochet amigurumi I've done
00:19:59.520 this through creating various crochet
00:20:01.080 tutorials and I've also done some
00:20:02.700 mentoring
00:20:04.919 both of these processes have helped me
00:20:07.140 learn how to better explain technical
00:20:09.419 Concepts to others
00:20:11.280 if you think explaining software
00:20:12.900 Concepts is difficult try explaining to
00:20:15.120 someone how to wrap and loop a piece of
00:20:17.400 yarn around a small hook a very specific
00:20:20.460 way in order to create a crochet stitch
00:20:22.980 and try doing this virtually it is very
00:20:26.039 difficult and because of this I've
00:20:28.440 learned that sometimes I need multiple
00:20:30.419 modes of communication to explain
00:20:32.280 different concepts to others
00:20:34.679 whether that be a written explanation a
00:20:37.500 step-by-step picture tutorial
00:20:39.720 or a short recorded video explanation
00:20:43.380 I've carried this learning over to my
00:20:45.840 software development career too
00:20:48.240 when I'm trying to explain complex
00:20:50.340 technical problems to my peers I try to
00:20:53.400 find a variety of resources a text blog
00:20:56.580 additional documentation or a video
00:20:58.860 tutorial in addition to my verbal
00:21:00.960 explanations in order to help solidify
00:21:03.539 the new Concepts
00:21:06.480 so I challenge you to take a look at
00:21:08.700 your hobbies and activities that you
00:21:10.620 participate in outside of programming
00:21:12.539 and you might find that there are some
00:21:14.580 similar connections between your work
00:21:16.440 and your hobbies and maybe your hobby
00:21:18.720 can help make you a better developer
00:21:22.320 so if you're interested in picking up a
00:21:24.539 new creative hobby like crocheting it's
00:21:27.240 fairly easy to get started you just need
00:21:29.520 yarn a crochet hook and scissors to
00:21:32.340 learn the very basics of crochet and if
00:21:34.919 you want to learn amigurumi
00:21:37.260 you'll just need a few extra materials
00:21:39.539 like fiberfill stuffing and a yarn
00:21:42.059 needle and you can find all these
00:21:43.919 materials at your local craft store for
00:21:45.960 under 30 to 30 dollars depending on how
00:21:48.720 yarn crazy you get
00:21:51.059 and as I touched on before there are
00:21:52.799 also a number of free online tutorials
00:21:55.559 and blogs that you can visit to learn
00:21:57.240 how to crochet and make amigurumi and I
00:22:00.120 highly recommend visiting the
00:22:01.380 lovecraft's blog they have some really
00:22:04.080 great information on crochet Basics they
00:22:06.299 have great videos and text explanations
00:22:08.659 on that and also how to make amigurumi
00:22:12.360 and I also make some video tutorials
00:22:14.100 aimed at beginners who are interested in
00:22:16.140 amigurumi so feel free to check that out
00:22:19.500 so thank you everyone for coming to my
00:22:21.480 talk does anyone have any questions
00:22:24.780 yep in the back
00:22:28.320 oh that's a great question so the
00:22:29.760 question was do
00:22:31.860 um
00:22:32.700 do I ever create crochet patterns with
00:22:35.280 other people
00:22:36.360 kind of like in a collaborative effort
00:22:38.460 and do I find similarities between that
00:22:40.559 and coding with other people I would say
00:22:44.580 that I actually haven't developed a
00:22:47.520 pattern with other people usually I've
00:22:50.100 worked on my own
00:22:51.860 but I do know that there are some people
00:22:54.840 who create patterns together
00:22:57.020 but I personally don't have experience
00:22:59.400 with that so
00:23:01.440 yeah so it definitely depends on how big
00:23:03.900 the amigurumi is
00:23:06.240 um like when you get used to making a
00:23:09.299 pattern if you're making it over and
00:23:10.500 over like repetitively it can go by
00:23:12.780 pretty quickly like I've made like these
00:23:14.880 frogs it can probably take me
00:23:17.700 between maybe like three hours it sounds
00:23:20.520 sounds like a lot of time but um but
00:23:22.679 when you're designing it takes a lot
00:23:24.059 longer it can it can take usually I
00:23:26.820 split it up and I can design a pattern
00:23:28.740 like over the process of a week
00:23:31.320 um
00:23:31.860 but probably it would take around maybe
00:23:36.000 like 12 to 15 hours because you do make
00:23:38.580 a lot of mistakes and you do want to
00:23:40.380 like make sure that it's right and
00:23:42.120 sometimes that process involves like
00:23:44.159 creating it twice just to make sure that
00:23:46.500 they both look the same and you know you
00:23:49.559 um your pattern's working so
00:23:52.140 thank you did you have a question
00:23:55.740 okay so um he asked about
00:23:59.100 um how do I go about creating my
00:24:01.740 patterns is it a more exploratory way or
00:24:04.679 am I going back and forth constantly of
00:24:06.720 crocheting a little bit and writing
00:24:08.100 things down I think it depends if I'm
00:24:11.760 making something like a circle like this
00:24:13.679 I can pretty much in my head I already
00:24:16.740 know kind of like the general pattern
00:24:18.900 that I need so I'll like write it down
00:24:21.419 and then I'll start crocheting and
00:24:22.740 making sure that it looks like what I
00:24:24.960 expect but if I'm creating something
00:24:26.820 that's
00:24:27.840 in a really strange shape kind of like
00:24:30.480 the Pikmin which is like going you know
00:24:32.820 curving a lot that's something that I
00:24:36.059 constantly I will write what I think it
00:24:38.700 will be and then I'll crochet it and
00:24:40.919 then I'm like oh that's not what I
00:24:43.440 wanted so then I'll erase that and then
00:24:45.720 I'll try something else so it depends
00:24:49.320 how familiar I am with how often I am
00:24:52.980 going back and forth with writing versus
00:24:54.860 testing it out so
00:25:00.000 any other questions
00:25:04.799 awesome thank you all for coming to my
00:25:07.020 talk