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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Taking the Easy Way Out....

When I went to start work on the stones this morning... This is what I found.

I was not in the mood to fight with Tessie, Zar, Spike and eight Minions. 

I decided that the easy way out was to do something else...

It's been a while since I just sat and played on my Pattern Maker.  That seemed like a good choice. for something to do, that the gang wouldn't try to take over...

This might be a good time to tell you about the advantages of using a cross stitch program for designing rugs.

I imagine that some of you are interested in designing your own cross stitch rugs...

This program is also handy for loom bead work, among other things. I have had this for years and every once in a while Pattern Maker sends me updates for it.  For free.

I think that there are other pattern designers for cross stitch on the net.  This just happens to be the one that I fell into.
If you like geometric patterned rugs or repeat patterns of any kind, these are handy. 

I used to draw out my patterns on ruled graph paper.  Now, I wonder why I ever did it that way...

The first thing I do is determine how big I want the rug to be and what material I am going to use.

Then I put in the numbers into the program.  After that, it is all down hill.  Especially with repeat patterns like this one.

As you can see, I started with the darkest color and did a diamond shaped grid... Theoretically, I could keep this pattern going for a room sized rug.  Then I start filling in with the other colors.

I decided to make this one square and not too big.  See the little pink squares on the outside edge of the three sides?  Those are the center points of the sides.

With the pattern maker, I can repeat any part of the rug over and over, by copying a section and moving the copy to another area.  The copy can be flipped so that it will fill in another area as a mirror image. 

For example, I have a quarter of the design filled in, in the bottom photo.  I can isolate that part of the design and copy and flip three times and I will have the whole pattern.

Theoretically, I could make the rug to fit any room with just the one piece to repeat.  The same with the border.  I can select any part of that and repeat. 

Anyway.  Here we go again!  Another rug for you to copy and finish before I do... Have fun.

See you tomorrow.

5 comments:

Lucille said...

Sounds complicated, Casey! I am no computer whiz!

Caseymini said...

Lucille, I am not one either. This program makes it easy, or I wouldn't be using it. G

rosanna said...

Must check if there is anything like this in Italian, it's so usefull.
Thanks for sharing
Rosanna

mcddiss said...

pues ese programa es muy interesante y muy util

besitos

Mari

Giac said...

Hello Casey,
I love the design. I will definitely look into that program.
Big hug,
Giac