Thursday, March 19

tapestry crochet: another method for making patterns

Sorry for the late post :-P


Two weeks ago I demonstrated how I made the pattern for my wave afghan. However, there were definite problems with my method: 1) final product has blurred colors, and 2) not easy.

To explore methods I will be converting the above image (one of my fav lolcats) into a tapestry crochet pattern via two different methods.


Just for comparison I'm including the modified image I made the patterns from.

I was actually quite impressed with PM Stitch Creator, which is a cross stitch pattern maker. PM Stitch Creator has several image-modification tools. For this image I increased contrast, lightened it, posterized it (which makes color changes abrupt rather than gradual) and finally reduced the number of colors to ten.

Ten is still a lot of colors to deal with for a tapestry crochet project, but this would be a attractive doable project.


This version took more time because I actually filled in the cells myself, but the result is a cleaner image that will be the same once it is crocheted (because I used a tapestry crochet grid). Tapestry crochet grids mimic the shape and directionality of crochet stitches so it's easier to gauge if lines will follow the picture you're working from.

I prefer this method because I have more control over how the image looks, and I can make good patterns smaller and with fewer colors.


I can also achieve a high level of detail, as I did in this portrait of Max. I would estimate ten hours of work went into creating Max and probably around three for civil disobedience cat.

2 comments:

allie aller said...

Very interesting, watching you explore this process.
And of course I love what you've done with that picture of Max!

Debra Dixon said...

That is the Cross Stitch program I was thinking of for your porjects. I use it for machine embroidery and although it is time-consuming, the results are very good.