PC Stitch...oh how I have waited for you...

I have mentioned in other posts my desire to own the PC Stitch program has gone on for much of my life...ever since I saw that first advertisement offering to create a pattern from a picture first crossed my little hands, I somehow wanted it for my own (remember, this was the days before people had home computers).

Through the years those ads just kept coming, from publication to publication, and, each time I came across it I wondered, "what would I want to stitch?"

Would it my current favorite cat (small home in the country, cats had short lifespans between cars zooming around the dirt road curve where we lived and the coyotes in the hills around our home). Would it be one of the goats that we raised from kids? How about our dog?

The older I became, and the more interested I grew in photography, the more my answer changed. Sure, I would still have loved stitching a portrait of our cats (or, better yet, mom's favorite cat from our childhood), and our goat family had expanded, but, by then I was in love with horses. Horses, yes, that's what I would want to stitch, or, wait, the mountain view in front of our home...

I never found the right picture (or, frankly, the huge amount of money they wanted for the service, this being the late 1970's and early 1980's and I, just another young teen too far from the city to get a job, and not enough babysitting gigs locally to save up for much...besides, my allowance usually went to develop the photos from my so-cool 110 camera and buy more film to use in it.

Zip ahead about 3 decades and here I am, an adult (by age definition anyway) with a home computer, a decent job and looking through a cross stitch magazine at the store. Well, hello, there is my old pal, "create your own cross stitch pattern" ad, only this time the ad is telling me I can buy the program itself.

Mind. Blown.

I manage to hold myself together, finish shopping and drive home, keeping to the speed limit as well as I usually do. Haul up the groceries, dump them into the fridge and cupboards and then sign onto Amazon.com.

Oh yeah baby....come to mama.

Two days later it arrives in the mail (thank you Amazon Prime!) My husband helps me install the program and I start taking a look around. The program offers a walk-through tutorial...pretty basic, and offers a new tip every time you open it (though you can shut it off, it does offer some really good information, so I left mine on).

Surprisingly, its not too hard to work your way around, but, I admit, there are options I still haven't quite figured out yet. I never got around to finishing that walk-through (see what I mean when I say I have a problem finishing things?) and instead jumped right into the "LET'S MAKE A PATTERN!" mode.

My younger sisters (16 and 21 years younger)...yep, we're a bit spread out in the all-original parents Zimmerman bunch (though not so all-original now that a few steps stepped in), but I digress. My sisters both had an interest in trying out cross stitch around that time, and were also sharing pictures back and forth of owl designs as a possible tattoo option. One, a very elaborate Ying/Yang of owls was a running favorite.

"Well", I thought, "this could be the project to get them both into cross stitch".

I found a good quality image, translated it into a pattern, ran out and purchased all the skeins needed, floss bobbins (the nice plastic ones, not the cheap cardboard), floss storage containers, Aida cloth in a lovely pale blue, hoops, scissors, needles...everything I thought they could possibly need.

I arrived home, and began assembling my kits...one for each sister and then one for my mother.  I happily wrapped them up for Christmas and couldn't wait to see their faces when they opened them.

Well, mom was happy about it, but wasn't sure when she'd have time seeing as she was now into a knitting binge, but she will eventually use it. My sisters were another story altogether. The youngest was probably going to get this tattoo at some point and thought it would be weird to have her future tattoo hanging on the wall, and the middle sister pretty much looked at how much work it would be and asked me if I thought she should start with something a bit smaller and easier?

At that point I realized that starting with a complicated, 50-color piece that would be nearly 9" square on even a decently small thread count was probably not my best choice.  I was taking something I knew that I could do, but not taking their skill levels and interests into consideration.

My younger sister moved on to hand-stitching felted animals, and the middle sister happily stitches those trendy little one-liners with a simple one-color image of a pile of poo on it. She likes them because they are quick, are basically her age bracket anyway for humor, and she likes that she can leave it in the tiny wood hoop that she stitched it in, trim the excess and hang it on the wall with no muss or fuss.

Sigh. My first lesson in listening to what people really want and not jumping the gun.

As I never asked the original author for permission to use the image (since it was just going to be used for family), I can't market the pattern until I can track them down and get their blessing... something that I admit I haven't bothered following up on, as every time I see this pattern I remember how classically (and expensively) I blundered.

Someday, yes...but right now? Ummmm.... not sure.

Next I promised to create something I really wanted to do for me...and then work changed. No longer was I an assistant at the office, but now the manager as she had left to chase another opportunity. I was thrust head-first into running a business and, while I understood billing and the day-to-day operations, I was clueless on all the regulation paperwork that had to be filed, multiple state taxes to be done monthly or quarterly, depending on the state, licenses to keep up, new ones to pursue as we expanded into new regions.

I was way over my head, and for the next 20 months my health took a downturn as my hours steadily increased to 50, 60, 70+ hour weeks without break and I was on-call each and every night and weekend. I had a surgery and was taking calls up until the moment they came to wheel me into the operating room, and back answering calls as soon as the anesthesia wore off. I worked from home for 3 days and then went back in, despite my doctor urging me to take at least 2 weeks off.

My health dipped again and I was up for another surgery a few short months later, and that, thankfully, is when I was fired.

After a third procedure a few months after that, my health was at its lowest, and my doctor recommended me for disability...and the government agreed. I had a long history on file regarding the condition of my skeletal system, and now the calcification had not only created bone spurs all over, but was slowly fusing my neck and spine, calcifying my tendons, destroyed my knees and, soon, my hips and leaving chronic, widespread pain in its wake. Unknown spiral fractures were discovered on my arms and legs, proving that I had moved into an area of high-risk fracture with falls.

I became depressed. I did nothing. Sure, I went to my physical therapy appointments as directed, but otherwise I just say and stared at the walls. I stopped reading, I stopped stitching...I pretty much stopped living.

Slowly though I came out of it. I began reading again; wondering why I had ever stopped. My hand tremors were still there, but I could manage some knitting and crochet, though I still grow tired quickly. Eventually I was able to be out of the bedroom and would walk to the living room, where my husband agreed to move my computer, as I hadn't used it in ages. I found a game called Cross Stitch World and began stitching virtually, but it just made me miss the real thing.

I thought about stitching and my lovely program, just waiting for me. Could I try cross stitch again? With water therapy and medication management my hand tremors were less, and only noticeable when I grew tired.

I opened the program and thought hard.

What would my first project be that was just for me.

I thought for awhile, and did random searches of images as things came to mind. I thought back to the one constant thing that I have loved since childhood.

Trixie Belden, teen detective. Much more realistic than Nancy Drew ever was, Trixie and her friends solved mysteries, helped friends and strangers through charitable activities, and Trixie not only wanted a horse, but grew up on a small family farm...just....like....I....did.

Trixie...of course! How could my first-ever just-for-me pattern be anything else?

I found an iconic picture that I liked, used Photoshop to remove the black frame and the blue arc on the right, and let the system do its magic (please note: according to my searches, the image below is no longer under copyright as Random House, the publisher who currently owns Trixie, has not renewed or taken up this image, but rather created a new one for their use)..

I couldn't believe it when I hit PRINT and watched as the pattern slipped into my hands.  This was it...this was for real.  I could hardly wait to get to the craft store where I would need to buy a whopping 52 colors! 52 colors, I scoffed...this is TOTALLY worth the cost.

And it was.

My next post will go in-depth into the stitching of this piece, but I do have to say a few things about the program itself.

First, I've seen sellers grabbing any non-copyritten image out there (and many that are still under copyright), run it through the program and then toss it online for sale.  You cannot do this, and no, I am not going to yell about copyrights, because we all know that its wrong to use someone else's trademarked image without permission.

The reason is that unless you are willing to take into account the size of the original piece, your reduced-size pattern isn't going to have nearly the detail you want. You just can't take a huge Monet canvas, reduce it to a 5 x 7 cross stitch pattern and expect the same amount of detail, and yet I have seen it up for sale and have purchased a couple in the past.

All you are doing is setting yourself up for an upset customer when the time comes to stitch the piece.

Second, you have to review your pattern carefully, which is why I didn't offer the Trixie pattern online until after I had stitched it up. Its a complex pattern with a lot of colors, and, it turns out, PC Stitch LOVES to toss in shading where there isn't any.  What do I mean? Well, I took an image with a single-color round "frame" around it, and the program turned it into an impossible 15 shades of blues, purples, greens and yellows!  There is a handy function where you can reduce the amount of colors the program originally works up, and its best to utilize it, otherwise you will be stitching a pattern that you bought a brand-new skein for and only use it for 3 unnecessary stitches (true story).

Third, the program isn't really happy about shapes, like rounded edges on the pattern. The Trixie image above had all sorts of jagged edges where one line of the oval would cut in by 8 or 9 stitches for no reason, and then back out again on the next, rather than offer a smooth edge.

Thankfully, this can be taken care of by selecting the color you want and filling in the missing stitches onto the pattern. The above image was cut off on the bottom, rather than give me a complete oval, which looked strange, so I simply painted in the areas I wanted, using the same colors already chosen for the shirt and shadows.

I have to admit, the drawing option is loads of fun to play with,

Fourth, the program likes to "best guess" sometimes. Trixie's eyes are china berry blue, but the program decided the image I used looked more lavender than blue. I hadn't noticed that until I was stitching the pattern and realized the error.  Easy enough to correct, and your average stitcher at home can tear out stitches and replace them with what they want, but this shouldn't happen because its wrong on the pattern that they are following.

My suggestions? Start with smaller patterns, or ones that don't take a lot of colors, until you get a better feel for how the program works for you. Play with the draw and erase stitches functions, as they are a joy to play with and you will learn a lot,  Definitely play with the backstitch function, as its not the easiest to figure out. Yes, drawing the backstitches isn't too bad, but erasing them if you've made a mistake is a literal pain in the tail. Its one option I wish were easier to deal with in the program, as the edit "go back a step" function will not back you up more than a few steps...if your mistake if well back in the design, its going to take some work to take the incorrect lines out.

Would I recommend this to others? Oh heck yes...its fun and easy to use, once you learn its quirks. Its reasonably priced too...I currently run PC Stitch Pro Version 7 on my computer, but version 11 is now out (ooh, I need to check up on what new stuff they offer) and its $70. Don't let the price tag scare you, because if  you just want to create patterns for your own use at less cost, there are other programs out there... just type Cross Stitch Software on the Amazon search bar will bring up several optional programs (KG and Hobbyware) with decent reviews and a lower sticker shock, plus there are older versions of PC Stitch listed for $20-$30.

Whichever program you eventually wind up choosing, I hope that you have fun creating patterns to satisfy the child within yourself.

My love of cross stitch

I now have four cross stitch patterns up for sale in my shop, 3 of which are of my favorite teen detective, Trixie Belden. I am also working on several non-book patterns, and it is so satisfying to be creating again. I am especially thrilled because its CROSS STITCH, which is a craft that I love and adore (cue up the angelic choir). How fun to take an image, transform it into a grid full of mystifying symbols and then follow that lovely crafty road map to create a work of art that can be framed to hang on the wall!

For those who love cross stitch and embroidery, it is a wonderfully relaxing medium that is easily portable and can be done anywhere. After a series of surgeries these last few years (none of which were hand-related, go figure), my hands grew shaky and I wasn't able to stitch, much to my dismay. Thankfully, over time (and with some knitting and crochet "therapy" my shakiness has subsided enough that I can stitch again, though on a slightly larger weave of fabric than I usually prefer. I am certain that, with time, I will once again be stitching away on ever-smaller and daintier weaves, but, for now, I am just happy to be able to stitch in any form.

Its now become my routine to sit quietly in my living room, overhead lamp shining golden light around me as I stitch away, and I find it to be such a serenely satisfying and peaceful way to end my day. There is nothing like the soothing rhythm of pulling thread through fabric repeatedly and watching an image magically being created right before your eyes.

I discovered cross stitch in much the same way I discover anything crafty: I see someone else doing it, figure out how its done and then dive in. With stitching, it was watching my mother when she started a sampler pattern of garden vegetables. She hadn't gotten very far, and her project bag sat in the back of the car one Sunday and throughout Sacrament Meeting I could feel the temptation rising. I tried ignoring it, squelching it down and focusing my attention on the speaker and the lesson, but to no avail... I just HAD to try stitching and waiting simply would not do.

So I did what any young teenage would-be crafter would do: I faked a headache and got mom to allow me to go "rest" in the car for the rest of church. I had to fight to look sick and tired and hurting as I walked to the car, but inside my thoughts were gleefully skipping and giving myself mental high fives.

Not a single guilty feeling for lying, especially on the Sabbath, was in sight.

I studied the pattern for awhile, trying to make sense of it, before making my first few stitches. Thankfully, mom had left her project with a threaded needle already in use, so it made recognizing
where I was in the pattern and figuring out the symbol that that shade of grey-green followed.

A counted cross stitch pattern can be a truly confusing thing to the uninitiated

I suppose I should take a moment to point out that there is more than one form of cross stitch... there is printed cross stitch, in which a regular piece of cotton has the pattern stamped onto its surface and all you have to do is stitch an "x" wherever x marks the spot on the pattern (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun). Pillowcases, tea towels and the like often come stamped as you wouldn't want to wipe your face on the scratchier Aida cloth that comes woven with holes in it typically used in cross stitch.

Then there is my favorite: counted cross stitch, in which you have a pattern full of lovely symbols (shown above) and a color key, which translates the symbols into specific colors. DMC, which stands for Dollfus-Mieg & Compagnie, a French embroidery manufacturer who has become the industry standard worldwide, although you can find conversion charts for other thread companies, such as Anchor, and smaller companies, such as Mill Creek, utilize specialty threads from specific vendors.

Ah, now the chart makes more sense, doesn't it?

Nearly any image can be converted into cross stitch: when I first became interested (mid 1980's), my mother was receiving a membership to a monthly cross stitch magazine (all of which, I have since inherited). In the back were ads offering to turn beloved family and pet photos into personalized cross stitch patterns (the idea of which thrilled me to the bone, though the outrageous $50+ price tags were another story). In the late 1990's that software program became available to the general public, but cost over $350! Not that I owned a computer to use it on, even if I could have scraped together the money to pay for the program.

My first "homemade" cross stitch pattern was one in which I used a magnifying glass to better see a simple pattern offered in a catalog and drawing it out onto graph paper, then picking out the colors I wanted to use out of my mother's small stash. I even adapted it as the original picture of two little girls sitting back-to-back had bonnets on their heads so you couldn't see their hair (all the easier to stitch I suppose). Not liking that idea, I braided brown and yellow floss into braids, tied them with a contrasting thread as "hair ribbons" and had them coming out from under the bonnets: "real" thread braids that hung free from the fabric, adding a depth of dimension the original pattern didn't offer.

Next I pulled out my trusting graph paper and copied a pattern found in an old book for miniature quilts whose color I changed to red and various deep greens to turn them into hanging Christmas ornaments that several family members received for Christmas that year. Those pattern sheets, created in the early 1990's, are still in my cross stitch pattern drawer and I have plans to adapt them once again this year.

The times since have changed. That ever-elusive pattern software that no one I knew could afford became reasonable in the last few years...how do I know? Easy, I now own it. Its a marvelous tool for taking an image and making a pattern, but it still has its own issues, which, thankfully, the program allows you to correct, or to draw your own pattern from scratch. For example, I will be posting shortly about a pattern I am testing that had a section that had to be erased and redrawn in the correct colors, but more on that later.

Its because I learned to draw my own patterns on graph paper that makes it easy to use my cross stitch pattern creator...something I never thought would be handy when I was young and simply copying out patterns because I couldn't afford to purchase. Its funny how life works out sometimes, isn't it?

The best part about cross stitch, to me at least, is the ease at which you can find patterns these days. Thanks to the internet, what was once only found in a magazine or in the pages of a print catalog (with their limited selections to choose from) you can now go to Etsy and find loads of inventive and fun projects to stitch...from simple back-stitched phrases and simple figures, to elaborate landscapes. Google search "cross stitch patterns" and hundreds, if not thousands, of free patterns are available at your fingertips, simply waiting for you to save and print.

If you haven't discovered the joys of cross stitch for yourself, then I highly suggest you give it a try.