Creating your own text patterns is easy, just choose an alphabet and type in your words. When you're done, click on 'Preview' to view your text formatted with the settings that you've specified. There are a few other options you can specify such as, the stitched size in 'number of stitches' (or inches/cm), centering, and word-wrap. If you make a mistake or your text doesn't fit just click your back-arrow to go back again to experiment with different fonts and settings, or to modify your text.
If you want to make your text start a new line press [ENTER] at the end of lines, otherwise it's best just to type text with no line-feeds and let the program wrap your text at the width you've specified. Press [ENTER] only when you explicitly want to start a new paragraph. Don't worry about making a mistake, you can always go back and try again. NEW! Subscribers can now save their text and settings for later use.
If you select 'Borders' you can choose one of our many custom borders to go around your text as well. There are many border styles to choose from and they automatically scale to the stitched size you have specified.
When you're happy with your text, click on 'Create Pattern' to generate your pattern. Your pattern will open in your browser window or possibly in your PDF reader program, or you can choose to save the file and open it later (see below if you need a PDF reader). Depending how large it is, your pattern will print on 1-12 pages. Color is optional and can be changed to improve readability. Of course you can do the actual stitching with any thread colors you wish!
Once your pattern opens on your screen, use your PDF functions such as 'zoom + -', to get a closer view of your pattern, 'save as', to save a copy to your computer, and 'print' to print it out. Actually, you don't even need to print it, you can save paper and stitch right from your computer or tablet screen if you like.
The amount of letters that will fit within a given design varies widely depending on the size of the alphabet you choose, and the stitched size you choose. For large amounts of text choose smaller sized letters or your design will likely end up too large and won't fit. For example, with our largest alphabet you may only fit a word or two - use these for large banners or signs, and use the small alphabets for poems and sayings, etc. You can always use your back arrow to come back and try different alphabets, etc. To get an idea of the letter sizes refer to the 'pt' size for each font which indicates the height of the letters in number of stitches (e.g. 2pt letters are 2 stitches high). To view a sample of all the letter sizes see our: Alphabet Sample Page. Designs can be created up to 440x420 stitches in size but don't let that stop you if you want to go even larger. It's easy to create larger designs in sections and then combine them when you stitch.
Only one font at a time can be used but if you want to include something in a different font, like a title, etc., it's not really that difficult to improvise. Leave some blank space in your design where you want the text to go by entering 'spaces' and/or pressing 'Enter' to make extra lines. Then go back and create your different text in the font you want. Just make sure it fits where you want to place it in your original design and you're ready to stitch.
Patterns are displayed in PDF format which requires Adobe Reader on your computer. If you don't already have a PDF reader you can download it for free from Adobe.
*UPDATE* Newer systems now have PDF reading built in thankfully. - or download Google Chrome if your current web browser doesn't support PDF. (Most modern browsers should display PDF natively now).
If you select 'Samplers' you can choose one of our custom samplers to add your text to. There are a limited number but if there's interest we'll add more in the future. Samplers are only one page and the size can't be edited. The amount of text area is much more limited so you will usually have to stick to the smaller font sizes, depending on how much text you enter.
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