How I design my own cross stitch patterns from scratch - and you can too!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 14 лип 2021
- Take a peek behind the scenes as I, a TOTAL PROFESSIONAL, design my own cross stitch pattern. We’ll go through the process from concept to finished pattern for sale on Etsy, and hopefully this can inspire someone else out there to give it a go too!
----------------------------
Get 25% off the completed Mountain Mandala pattern on Etsy with the code MSMYT25 or by following the link www.etsy.com/u...
If you enjoy my videos, please consider supporting the channel by buying me a cuppa over at ko-fi.com/theg...
----------------------------
Software mentioned in this video:
PCStitch - www.pcstitch.com/
WinStitch / MacStitch - www.ursasoftwa...
StitchFiddle - www.stitchfidd...
----------------------------
You can also find me at linksta.cc/@th...
And join our Discord community full of socially awkward crafters at / discord
Love it! Your sense of humour made me smile. Great job on the pattern design and explanation :-)
Thank you so much! I'm still feeling my way with this UA-cam lark so am glad to hear I amuse someone who isn't myself 🥳
We need a photoshop pattern tutorial!!
I'm working on one! 😆
I’d love to watch a tutorial on this? Is it posted somewhere and I just missed it? 😄
Yes! Any news on the tutorial?
Looking forward to that tutorial!
@@TheGiddyStitcher def excited for this tutorial!!!
LOVED this video. Your sense of humor lifted my somewhat stressful day, and the content was informative and inspirational on moving forward with an idea I've been struggling with. Thanks for making it!
Love your teaching style! Matter of fact and full of detailed information!
Thank you so much!
I'm so happy you showed up in my recommended videos! I'm home by myself and just laughing out loud watching (while I'm supposed to be cleaning up). I started with your first one and was instantly hooked. I'm trying to tell myself to stop and be productive for at least a little bit and then get to some stitching . . . I'm not listening to myself. Anyway - thank you for your contribution to the craft world - you are absolutely delightful! 🧵jacque🧵
Thank you for this behind the scenes! Love everyone's different approaches to designing.
I agree, it's always kind of inspiring to me to see all the different creative approaches to design. Glad you enjoyed my little contribution, thank you for the comment 🥰
At first, just looking at the design on your shelf, I totally thought it was a diamond instead of 3 mountains. When you said your design topic was core values I was like oh yeah! A diamond surrounded by energies! What a great representation! Lol.
Your pattern is so beautiful and inspiring! I was going to click on this video anyway for the info, but I am in awe of your art. The shapes and the colors look so good together. It really makes me want to test the limits of my pixel art.
Oh this was so lovely! I am so with you about random strangers and the ADMIN!!!!🤣
Hi Michelle, I enjoy your videos. You’re inspiring me to organize it into PDFs to share w others. I’ve tried different types of stitch work but my personal favorite is to get copyright free images from the 1900s to the 1930s. I make the image pale in Photoshop, flip it, print it, then trace it out to do an iron-on, on fabric.
Aw thank you ☺️ That's such a good tactic, and of course every year new things will go into the public domain so there'll never be a shortage of inspiration!
I love you and your videos ! So cute omg . And YES creatives are some of the most insecure people on the planet . ) you are NOT ALONE ! ;)
Haha, we really are the worst (but also the best, so that's ok). Thanks for watching! 🥰
your videos are really cool, u r really smart, im proud of you.
Thank you for being realistic about the reality of being a crafter and everything involved. I feel crazy all the time lol
I think we probably are a bit crazy really, but definitely in the good way 😎
Your work speaks for itself. Beautifully done!
I find this more fascinating than stitching pre-made designs
I'm definitely with you there! It's so satisfying seeing something go from vague, unformed idea to an actual physical stitched thing!
I actually laughed out loud at step 2! 🤣
I'm new to both cross stitch and your videos, and love it so far! Thanks for sharing the HOW of your creativity 😊
Step 2 is crucial, imo. Gotta give your brain some downtime to sort through things, it's SCIENCE!
Welcome to the hobby! 😄
4:00 I have worked around a similar problem by including an exactly 1cm or 1inch long (the longer, the more accurate) sample line that I can measure after printing to see if it has printed the right size and know how much bigger or smaller I need to scale the image to print at the exact size I want.
I have noticed that even if I were to, say, make a sketch that is 2x3 inches and have it print from the file size or image that I pre-made to be 8.5x11 to make sure it comes out the right size. It will still sometimes come out too big or too small regardless of settings, previous results or careful planning. It's the best method I've found for getting the most out of trial and error prints.
Love the video! Thanks for the giggles, especially the “awkward call to action...!”🤣
There's not many things I'm skilled at but I guess if being awkward is a skill, I've got that one down. Thanks for watching!
I just stumbled upon your video! You are absolutely delightful! Thanks for taking the time to make this, quite helpful.
Ah thank you so much! 🥰
It is easy to like your videos, because you are so clever, funny and talented. 💖
That's super sweet of you to say, thank you! ❤️
Love your sense of humor. I subscribed because you make it fun instead of boring
Thank you so much! ❤️
Seeing the pic of Braveheart is funny, because I am trying to learn how to make the design on his handkerchief in the movie for my husband! I hope this video helps me!
Your humor is spot on 😂 great video👍🏻
Absolutely love how you asked for "Like & Subscribe"!
Wow love this coz i need this for business ,seen 1998 until now.
You are my new favorite person. I adore your sense of humor & appreciate your sharing your process!
I'm way too awkward to know how to really respond to compliments like this, so I'm just gonna say thanks 😅
@@TheGiddyStitcher haha same! You're welcome 💜
Had me giggling in the first two mins - love that you shared this
Love your channel and your personality!
Aw thank you! 🥰
Love everything about your channel. Thank u much.
Aw thank you so much! ❤️
You're so funny!!! Love your video
I change my mind about colors so many times!! Sometimes after I’m all done 🤦🏻♀️ I should definitely test them first.
Oh you do not even want to know how many shades of grey I bought to finally get this one how I wanted it 🤦♀️😂
@@TheGiddyStitcher I just can’t find the colors I want! And when there’s a color I love it runs out so fast and then I can’t find it again ☹️ .. grey is the worst to get right!
What the heck? How do some people use mock ups? Where is the software for the king of thing? I’m curious. Anyway great vid
You always make me smile
Ah thank you! 🥰
I loved your video, Michelle! Very informative and funny! It’s nice to hear I’m not the only one despising the admin part of a shop haha 😂 ! I can’t wait to see the next patterns you’ll create!
Thank you! I don't despise it exactly but I do usually forget to plan enough time for it and then resent it greatly 😅
oh you had me at eurovision banger
Thanks so much for your info!
Hello! Can you please make a video on how you use photoshop to create patterns? Also, I love your keyboard, can you share the make and model? 🙏🙇🏻♀️ P.S. I love your humor!
Good timing! I'm actually in the middle of redoing my system a bit to take into account Pattern Keeper compatibility, and have been running a few experiments on the most efficient way to do things, so will happily put all my findings into a video once I've got them straight in my head :D
I don’t stitch but if I did, I’d stitch your very cool design!👍
Thank you! I have no idea how you found my video in that case, but I hope you enjoyed it nontheless 😆
i was like # 1,000!! just subscribed and i love u
You mentioned a cross stitch action for photoshop? I am very intrigued! I am a long term designer, new cross stitched and anxious to start combining my two hobbies!
Ooh, welcome to cross stitch! My PS action is custom made and tweaked over years and tbh is probably not very usable for anyone except me because it does some pretty specific things. Maybe I should think about making it more general and putting it up for download somewhere...
But in the meantime there are a few for sale, I can't vouch for them obviously but it might be worth having a look at things like creativemarket.com/GraphicSpirit/1592002-Cross-Stitch-Photoshop-Action or graphicriver.net/item/cross-stitch-and-needlepoint-action/3264823
Hope that helps! :)
I love your way 💛
Thank you :)
Hello! Love your video!! Would you mind giving me a tip of where you got the .psd file for the cross stitch mock up? I've been looking but couldn't find any.. I usually stitch my pattern as well but sometimes I need a mock up for psd, I don't use the cross stitch softwares that render it automatically.. Take care! Love your style
Do you have a tutorial on creating the promo images for listings?
You're hilarious! Thank you for this.
No thank YOU! 😄
I'm trying to figure out the machine I need in order to create the stamped cross stitch, I've figured out the printing of the custom pattern but I prefer to do stamped cross stitch over counted as a beginner. What do they use to make the stamped kits 😅😅😅 please help 💚💙 much love and much thanks for this video that walked me through the pattern making lol.
Pro tip when designing circles there is a minecraft circle generator on the web gives perfect circles at desired radius every time.....
Yes! I use this all the time both in cross stitch design and also Minecraft 🤓
Excellent tip.
Wishing I still had my desk top 🖥
Superrrrr❤
I too make all my important decisions from a bubble bath.
Yes! It's a proper life hack 😁
Hi from saltburn brilliant videos
Thanks! Welcome to the channel, it's always nice to meet another local :)
Ahahahahah nice humor! Thank you! 😂
❤❤❤❤❤
Thank you! I have tried using photoshop but it looks so intimiating and the credential is like 100 dollars i believe. I will try the other options! Thanks for the suggestions n_n
Yes Photoshop works for me but I already had it through work so it made sense, very expensive otherwise! There's a tool out there for everyone it just takes a bit of experimenting to find it. Good luck! 🙂
@@TheGiddyStitcher thank you!!!!!! 😃
It is good you can make thutorial patern crosstic...it is good miss
Do you know which programs can make the X's for the mock-ups? I've Googled it a thousand different ways and can't find anything.
Can you make a pattern about scout 🙄👀
Hi Michelle!! I'm curious as to how do you create the 10x10 grids on photoshop? I've been wanting to use photoshop to design a pattern but I'm really struggling, I haven't used photoshop in a few years and I have no idea what I'm doing 😂😭 And how do you turn the pixels into crosses at 4:02 ? Thank you in advance!
Hi, thanks for watching! So it's all pretty specific to my process but basically: I work as pixel art first so each square is literally 1px and just use the built-in Photoshop grid for that.
Then when it's done and time to turn into a mockup, the first step in that is to scale up the whole piece so that each previously 1px square is now a specific size that my custom-made mockup action expects it to be. Then I run the action, and hooray!
Since everything needs to be a really specific size, for the 10x10 grids I literally just have a manually created grid image where each grid square is that exact size and drop it unceremoniously on top of the design.
Ok I'm reading this back and it might not make any sense. Please let me know if it doesn't make any sense! :D
@@TheGiddyStitcher Thank you for the clear answer!! It made a lot of sense :)) I had another question, in the video at 4:02 you change the pixels of the design into crosses, how did you do that? Was it on photoshop as well? Because I went through all the settings and options and couldn't find anything similar :( Sorry for bothering you so much haha!!
Sorry I didn't make that clear. That's the mockup action, it uses my custom X brush to run quickly through a preset series of steps to turn it from plain squares to something looking vaguely like cross stitch. I believe you can buy similar actions, or the popular xstitch design softwares do something similar as a built-in feature. Good luck! :)
@@TheGiddyStitcher oooh!! That makes a lot more sense now :) Thank you for the quick reply!!
Hi, I'm wanting to do so EXTREMELY detailed shading & highlighting in my design. Got ANY suggestions for how I can do this properly? My design is a lady standing lady lady in a very fancy dress. The dress has lots of folds & creases, she has open eyes & beautiful makeup... see my issue? I need to know the very best 5 shades up & down of just about _every_ DMC colour in their entire selection. TIPS? _Please?_ 😂😂
It sounds like you're maybe coming at it as more of an artist, maybe you've even got your design drawn or painted already? If that's the case it might be worth, just as a starting point, using a converter tool of some kind (paid ones like WinStitch, or free ones like FlossCross). It's not going to give you a perfect pattern out of the box but it's a start that you can then tidy up from there.
As far as choosing the colours for detailed shading there's no substitute for just stitching up a small sample, but the conversion software could give you a good idea of which colours to try first.
@@TheGiddyStitcher Thank you SO very much for your response. Honestly, after watching you video & seeing how you actually did a test run got me _seriously_ thinking that, I'm probably gonna have to bite the bullet & DO it for real, to see what it's going to look like. Poor, poor me, right?😂 I'm going to need to stitch some more, to get my answers. You pity me oh so much right now, don't you? 🤣🤣 If it works & if I remember I might try posting a short little video to show you how things worked out. Wish me luck. And again, thank you for the advice/ suggestion. 🍀
Great video! Please could you do a video on converting pixel art colours into actual DMC threads? I used an online converter but the colours are off and I only found that out after stitching the entire sample project!
Ooh no that's awful! Which converter was it? I did do a whole video comparing free converters (dunno if you've seen that one yet) and some of them looked more accurate on screen than others but of course you never can be sure without stitching them, which is a big commitment.
Converting between colour codes and threads is actually pretty complicated (which explains why all the converters end up with something slightly different) but I shall add this to the video requests pile, for sure!
@@TheGiddyStitcher so I didn't use a converter ... I manually made the pattern in Excel... This was before I knew about converters... I also really want to make my own patterns without relying on software that hides the code/ methods used, but it took a LONG time and that was for a 32 x 32 pattern. So a very long journey ahead to get better at this
The issue is - the art I was making a pattern from was on physical paper so that's why I struggled to accurately convert the physical colours into digital colours. Any tips for this?
@@TheGiddyStitcher once I had the digital colour palette (RGB & HEX) it was possible to convert that into DMC using some custom code.
But I believe the RGB/ HEX values weren't accurate to the physical art itself.
Also there are not enough DMC colours to match every possible colour so the "closest match" isn't always accurate at all
completely missing the point of the video: what's your Eurovision banger for this year? I end up with Ukraine and Poland's entries stuck in my head so often this year 😅🙏
My official top three were Norway, Slovenia and Ukraine but I thought the biggest earworm was genuinely Finland (with an honourary mention to Lithuania). Did quite like Poland's at first but poor Luna just couldn't pull it off live and that staging was BIZARRE.
Eu rindo já no inicio do vídeo, 🤣😂😂😂🤣
haha you sound like my twin
we could be twins. Cheers to another happy oddly wonderfully awkward to another!
Woohoo! Awkward and proud! 😎😆
I want to ask you some questions. I want to prepare a cross stitch catalog of carpet motifs. How will I be able to share the motifs on ETSY as a .pdf file? Should we consider about the cross stitch size: 2 mm or 2.5 mm? Second question is what about the digital format that can use in their embroidery machine? I can create for embroidery machine? Can we sell those in ETSY? Could you enlighten me?
Hi! So, first of all, apologies I can't help with your second question as I have no experience with embroidery machines.
When you talk about size I assume you mean print size of your grid? The main thing there is just to make sure you're not putting too many stitches on one page, so they're nice and clear and readable. Generally around 70 stitches max is a good size to aim for per page, although to cover all the bases you can also consider including larger print (maybe 40 stitches per page) for those with poor eyesight, or a whole-pattern-on-one-page version for those who use the PDF on their digital device and prefer to just zoom in. As always with anything like this, bear in mind A4 vs US Letter paper sizes can sometimes cause problems so your layout needs to work on both.
I hope that helped, if I misunderstood the question please let me know!
@@TheGiddyStitcher Creating a page for an embroidery design and a page for cross stitches are different. Cross stitch size depends on the height and width of the one cross stitch so you have to type cross width and height not just the total design width and height when you create a dijital file. When you cross stitch it becomes a square. There is a height of it. You use a template fabric. Its size is fixed. In dijital format you can choose the cross stitch height and width. That was what I was talking about. However, with dijital format you can use any fabric and you do not have to draw anything on fabric. Machines does it. But I also suggest you if it is for dijital files, there is embird software which is the cheapest among the other ones. Wilkom price is insane. Embird has cross stitch feature. Even photoshop is more expensive than embird. You can use it to create templates so fast and see the rendered file and also the size of the stitches as you draw and this is powerful. I have seen that you use a plugin of photoshop that turns squares into 2 cross lines based on the color of that specific square in your design. However, using a software like that not only gives you the flexibility when you design but also may be in time you can use those design's dijital format for the products you want to sell. Many people creates T-shirts for ETSY for instance. Your designs would not be just for hand made but also those hand made design will have in dijital format and that may give you some opportunities in the future.
You got a subscription and like from me :-)
Woohoo! Thank you and welcome!
Wait, a test stitcher is a thing? Where do I sign up for that?
Haha, it absolutely is! I can't help with the "where" though, it seems a lot rarer in cross stitch than it is in knitting. I imagine most designers just put calls out on their social media...maybe someone needs to build a platform especially to connect designers with enthusiastic stitchers...hmmm....🤔
🤣🤭☝️I do not feel guilty at all.🤷♀️🤔Do you find yourself thinking ?:"Ah! Fuck this bullshit! I ain't fucking stitching no more (other than gifts.)if I can't earn money off it to." "So there's that ,right off the bat." "I'm a poet to!"😊👍😎
You're funny