I use the MacStitch/WinStitch software (depending on whether I’m using my Mac or my PC). Now when I design my patterns, I use cross stitch software rather than doing it by hand. “David” painting and cross stitch, 5×7″, 2014 Here’s a picture of the painting I used and the finished piece – the stitched piece is not amazing, but it’s not bad for my first attempt at designing and my first stitched piece in about 20 years. I was recording my stitches by hand in the iPad app Cross Stitch 2 Go (made by Ursa Software, the same company that does MacStitch and WinStitch). It took me about a month to do it this way, but I did end up with a not-too-horrible pattern. I’d stitch a few crosses in one colour, put the acetate over the top and see if I needed to change the colour at all, stitch a few more stitches, etc. I then held the acetate copy in front of my embroidery hoop. I did this for my first pattern I designed – I colour copied my “David” painting onto acetate, and bought floss in the main colours by holding the colour copy up to the individual skeins in the shop. You can also create a pattern by hand by photocopying an image onto a sheet of clear acetate (like you’d use for overhead projectors, you can get sheets of it from most stationary shops or copy centres). It’s not impossible at all, it just will take more time and effort to chart up a more complex pattern.
To get a detailed pattern drafted up will take more time than using software. It’s also harder to translate existing images like family photos to a pattern by hand. One major downside of designing your patterns by hand is it’s more difficult to use a big variety of colours and make your pattern easy to read. It’s a great way to get them thinking creatively, and they can use their stitched pieces as patches for bags or clothing, name tags, etc. If you’re doing this with kids, you can get them to draw out their designs themselves onto the graph paper, or transfer existing drawings to graph paper. It’s specific to your needs, so it’s as customizable as you want. It’s totally up to you as to how big or how complex you want to make the pattern, that’s the beauty of designing your own cross stitch pattern. If you’re wanting a more detailed pattern, you can either use larger sheets of graph paper or graph paper that has more squares per inch. Then you’d colour in the individual squares of the graph paper to represent each stitch (and you can use coloured pencils or felts if you want to use more than one colour in your pattern). Designing by hand is quite simple – you can draw your image onto a sheet of graph paper with a pencil (or trace it or use transfer paper). There are two main ways you can do cross stitch pattern design – by hand and using software. But there are many different methods to make your own pattern (either for yourself or for kids) – hopefully this article and video will encourage you to give it a try and stretch your creativity. It’s understandable that many stitchers wouldn’t consider making their own pattern. A cross stitch pattern chart is usually made up of symbols that represent each colour on graph paper, but some are so complex it looks like a logo machine threw up all over the paper. It can be daunting to try and design a cross stitch pattern for the first time, especially if you’ve seen how complicated some patterns are.
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