Designing the Seasons Series Patterns

You may have noticed that many cross stitch pattern designers create the series patterns from time to time. There might be some character acting in this or that design, some seasons patterns or just a set of designs in some very particullar style. I myself have recently finished a cute seasons series with adorable little girls, who resemble me of dolls. In this article I would love to share my experience.

Assuming you have already some reference pictures or ideas about your series patterns, let's discuss what else you should keep in mind and think about:

- the size of the patterns must be the same

- try to use the same colours in the designs if possible

- the style of the patterns must be the same

To decide on the size, look at all the pictures you have and look at the small details you want to show in your designs. You need to be sure you will be able to draw all the designs in one size without loosing anything vital about them. Sometimes the pictures have blank space on the sides (fields) which are not the same size from picture to picture, which might make it difficult to set the size when you underlay the picture in your program for pattern design. In my case I was looking at the eyes and face: each time I started the new girl I was setting the size in order to get 7x7 stitches sized eyes. I also got sure the faces, arms and legs are approximately the same size. The difference should not be more than 1 cross stitch for medium sized designs.

The colour choosing is more simple. When you are a designer you are a kind of an artist yourself. Don't be afraid to change some shades and colours if it still looks good in the pattern. Use the Itten circle to be sure your colours stand toghether pretty well. You can find the article about the Itten circle in my blog (https://www.2alpacasdesign.com/post/itten-circle-why-it-s-vital-for-designing-cross-stitching). If you use the same colours for the pattern series, the stitchers will save some money buying threads and your patterns will look together better since there will be even more in common between them.

The question of the style is a complicated one in my view and I will explain why. When you are mastering your skills you tend to change the way you draw the patterns. By the way, do you know the 10 000 hours rule? It says the time you spend developing your skills means far more than your natural talent. But back to our style question. So if you have great time gaps between creating the patterns from your series, it might occure that the later patterns don't look really like the first ones. This will be visible if you are a novice designer. I recommend doing the series in the row, taking as little time between the patterns as possible. If you have been designing patterns regularly for about 2-3 years or more, your style and skills of course are mastered enough to allow time gaps)

Let me introduce my girls now. Welcome Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer!

'Autumn Walk' was the first I've created. This girl has set the style. I used the same colours for the skin in all other patterns. The 'Summer Walk' girl has also the same hair colour.

You may have noticed that the original Winter reference picture had a sad faced girl. Even though she looked pretty cute, I decided to make her more happy and yet dreamy.

The ultimate tenderness of the Spring! I really love the colours I've picked up for the pattern. The girl has also become more cheerful. I decided to make her hair bright to reveal the warm Spring sunshining.

The original Summer picture had lots of yellow shades. To make the pattern more interesting I have added more green colours. The girl is a main character and sunflowers are the background, so the colours for the dress are more vivid and bright and the flowers don't attract too much attention with their more pastel shades of yellow.

In the next articles I would love to cover the topics of the own designer's style and drawing hair in the cross stitch pattern. If you have any questions on this article or next topics, leave a comment or message me. Thank you for staying here with me and reading!)

#cross #stitch #pattern #design #create #seasons #girls #winter #autumn #summer #spring #flowers