Tag Archives: Stitch diagrams

Tidying up stitch diagrams

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Although I use a computer program to create the charts I use in my chart packs, and quite a few of the stitch diagrams too, there are some stitches – most notably many of the looped and knotted ones – which I can’t adequately represent in a program originally meant for making your own cross stitch charts. So I draw them by hand in pencil, go over them in pen, erase the pencil lines, photograph or scan them, and turn them into an image which can be included in the chart packs.

So far so good. They work. They look a bit rustic, but they work.

But then one day, after I had imported one of these stitch diagrams into my photo editing program and had cropped it and fiddled with contrast and brightness and generally turned it into a usable image, I decided to see if I could tidy it up a bit. And I could. It was labour-intensive, and fiddly, and occasionally the experience ranged from frustrating to infuriating, but after the process it did look a lot better. Almost professional smiley!

One of the old diagrams for bead edging The tidied-up version

There was only one drawback: now that the new diagrams were looking so much neater, the old ones looked rather untidy by comparison. Still perfectly usable, but decidedly scruffy. I’ve tried to ignore it for a bit, but there’s no help for it – they will all have to be tidied up. And so, one or two at a time, I’m tidying. It’ll take a while, and then I’ll have to replace them in all the chart packs that contain any of the early hand-drawn diagrams, but eventually I hope to have a collection of chart packs looking a bit more sophisticated than they do now.

If you bought one or more of the chart packs containing these diagrams, do let me know if you’d like the new version when I get it done, and I’ll be happy to email it to you. On the other hand, if you feel the old drawings were more personal, authentic, artisan, in short, nicer, then do please cherish the copy you have – whichever look you prefer, both show equally well how the stitch is worked!

Drawing stitch diagrams

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If you’ve ever tried to explain a new stitch to a fellow stitcher using only words, you’ll realise that stitch diagrams are indispensible in chart packs. Dove’s eyes, woven bars, chain stitch – you could describe them without illustrations, I suppose, but generally I think stitch diagrams are the next best thing to actually having a fellow stitcher with you to show you how it’s done.

And so I create stitch diagrams for each and every stitch used in my designs, from the humble backstitch to the complicated round eyelet networks that crop up in my Ukrainian-inspired designs (like Odessa, which I’m hoping to start this month).

One of the problems when drawing a stitch diagram is that quite a few stitches can actually be worked in several different ways, none of which is inherently more "right" or "wrong" than the others. Which do I pick? Very selfishly I tend to choose the one that works best for me, partly because it means I can describe that method best. Another problem in drawing stitch diagrams is just that, the drawing. Ideally all the diagrams would be created on the computer, and come out sharing the same look, with every needle looking the same, and the fabric threads being very uniform and so on. Like the diagrams in magazines, and books.

There is software which will do all that. Unfortunately, it costs hundreds of dollars. And that’s before import duty and Royal Mail handling fees.

And so I draw my own – some on the computer with the help of my stitching program and a good photo editor, some (mostly the ones that require the needle to be shown) by hand on paper. Would you like to see how they’re done?

First I work the stitch myself several times, looking very closely at what I do and in what order, and noting the actions of needle and fingers. (I don’t usually photograph this stage, but this is what it looks like; you can see several other trial stitches on that scrap of fabric.)

Stitch diagram step 1

Then I draw a representation of it in pencil on squared paper. At this stage I don’t worry about accurately showing which thread goes behind which, or whether the needle is in front or behind the working thread. In fact, the thread can be seen through the finger!

Stitch diagram step 2

Finally I go over the pencil lines in black ink, making sure that this time it is clear from the drawing whether the working thread goes over or under the needle. I also add letters or numbers to refer to in the description.

Stitch diagram step 3

And there you have it, a stitch diagram. Not as uniform and regular as the ones in magazines, but I hope and trust that it does the job and shows clearly how a stitch is worked. And that, after all, is the main thing!