A Guide To Creating Your First Cross Stitch Pattern

In this article we will design your very first cross stitch pattern together: I will lead you through this task and we will get you there!)

First of all, you will need a special software. I myself use Cross Stitch Professional, but you can also use Pattern Maker, PC Stitch or any other software on your choice. It doesn't matter much what software you use. Our goal now is to grasp the idea and the technique of creating a cross stitch pattern.

Secondly, you will need some picture you would like to see in cross stitches. You can take the picture of your own, ask a friend to draw something for you, buy the right to use a picture from an artist or take the officially free for commercial use pictures. Mind that you can't just google for some picture and take it. In such case you can unintentionally break the law and the artist's copyrights. There are plenty of sources of free pictures, and one of the most popular ones is Pixabay. I have added a link on the picture below.

For your first cross stitch design pick up something small and easy. The edges should be clearly visible. Avoid pictures with small details, too many colours or objects that you can't identify. I decided to choose this little cat for the lesson. You can start with some cute animals or flowers (like tulips), which are quite straightforward to transfer into the cross stitch pattern. Now when the picture is chosen we start to create!

You should import the picture to the program you use, and I will show how to do this in Cross Stitch Professional. Unfortunately, I have only Russian languaged software version, but the location of all the buttons is the same. So, follow my steps, and we go to the 'canvas' button first. You should choose the background picture option so the picture will be underlayed to your grid. You should find the option under the 'beading' one.

In the small window which will appear click the lock button and after that choose your picture. Select the size of the pattern according to difficulty. Look at the small details: you should be able to show them in your pattern, either in cross stitches or with backstitch. You may have to simplify something, and that's OK. Also mind the size of the finished stitchery. Look at the rulers: they show the size on Aida 14 ct in inches. Double click on the rulers will change inches to cantimeters and one more double click - to the grid numbers.

Your third step will be adding the colours to work with. Delete all the unused colours, using the 'Palette' menu option, the 'Remove Unused Colors' option. To add a colour, double click on the palette colour cell. The panel with DMC colours will open, where you can pick up the colour. You can also find a colour knowing it's number. It is better to work with DMC colour card, where you can see the exact thread colours. But even if you don't have one, most DMC colours matches the ones in your program pretty good. There are some colours that are a bit different, but mostly they match. Keep in mind two things: 1) real DMC colours are practically always lighter than the ones in program; 2) real threads will work better together and the colour changing will be more smooth.

You start creating the pattern from backstitching. Choose black 310 colour, which is standart for backstitching, and follow the edges of your picture. There are several buttons to work with backstitch, and we will use two that go first. The very first one will draw the backstitch only from one corner of the grid square to another (so-called 'counted backstitch'). The second button will draw fractional backstitch, which can go from the center of the grid square side or even from the center of the square. For the first projects we will use the first button mostly. To draw a backstitch line, click the corner of a square and while holding the left mouse button slide to another corner. To delete the backstitch, click on the backstitch line with the right mouse button. Try to follow the edges, but don't be too picky about this. If the lines go a little bit other way - it's normal, believe me. I have added the backstitch in 2 strands. You can change the backstitch colour by using the fourth backstitch button.

To draw the cross stitches, use the first button with a cross. Pick up the colours for cross stitches and colour the pattern, trying to follow the colours on the underlayed picture. I used 3855, 3827, 3865, 762, 415, 413, 3770, 945 DMC colours. Since this is our first project, we will make it simple. For the ground I decided to use half cross stitch: this won't draw too much attention to the floor. You can draw the half cross stitch with different inclination: there are two buttons for this type of stitch. You can see the lock on the colour cell where the white 3865 colour is. This helps me not to lose this colour, since sometimes one forgets about white colour and changes it to some else.

Our first simple cross stitch pattern is ready! We can leave it as it is and prepare a pdf file with the chart. Or can make it even a little bit better by adding some blended colours! To add a blend, choose the empty colour cell and find the 'blend current color' option in 'Palette' menu. Use blends to make the colour changing nice and smooth! Mind that 762 colour, for example, is lighter in real life and thus closer to 3865 white colour. I have added three blended colours: 762 + 3865, 945 + 3770, 3827 + 3855, because I love stitching designs with extra-smooth colour changing.

With all the blends added our pattern looks like this:

I hope you got much pleasure in creating your very first cross stitch pattern! This is a first little step to start a great journey! I didn't cover the export issue here, because it's a complicated thing to be explained in two words. But at first you can export your patterns using the pre-set options. I have also created some videos to show the process: