How to Turn a Photo or Drawing into a Cross-Stitch Pattern

One of the most common questions I see online when it comes to designing patterns is how to turn a photo or drawing into a cross stitch pattern. It’s not actually that difficult, especially if the project isn’t too detailed, but there are also some ways to make it easier.

If you want to draw it out yourself by hand, these instructions from WikiHow cover the basics. You’ll need a light box (or a window) to help you trace the general outlines of your design and sketch in any details. You’ll also need gridded paper of the same count that you plan to use for your design (this helps get the scale right), which you can find here.

Once you have the general outline you’ll have to decide if you want to use partial stitches to follow the exact outlines of shapes or shift the design a little to keep with whole stitches. You can also pick your colors and choose to color in the chart or use different symbols to indicate the different colors (or both!).

If you don’t want to have to draw your cross stitch pattern out completely on your own, you can use a program like StitchFiddle to do it for you. With StitchFiddle you can choose your craft (knitting, crochet, cross stitch and more) and the brand of floss you use, then upload a photo or start with a blank chart to make your own design. You can even make QR codes to stitch.

You can alter the number of colors, the fabric count and the size and it will adjust your chart accordingly. (I don’t think you can save without an account, but it’s fun to play with to see what your chart will look like before you subscribe.)

Another option is to have someone else make the chart for you. This is a service that DMC offers on its website. You just upload your photo and indicate what size fabric you want to use. Then you’ll either pay for the chart itself, or they will send you the chart for free if you buy all the thread for the project at the same time.

Have you ever made a cross stitch chart from a photo or drawing? I’d love to hear your tips!

[Photo: DMC]

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I totally missed Toy Story 4, so it took my by surprise when Toy Story 5 came out, but let’s celebrate with some Toy Story cross stitch patterns.

This sweet design including Woody, Buzz and Jessie is from The Xstitch Shop, and they actually have a few different Toy Story options. This one says it is for intermediate stitches, probably because of the size and number of colors, but the sales page doesn’t say how big it is or how many colors it uses. It’s still cute, though!

If you’ve got a fan of Jessie in your household, this collection of Jessie themed icons is super cute to stitch. The design is from Mercury Stitches and it measures 97 by 144 stitches. that comes out to 6.9 by 10.3 inches, or 17.6 by 26.1 cm, and uses 11 colors. It has full and half cross stitches, as well as back stitching and French knots.

Share the love of friendship with this sweet Woody and Buzz heart hands cross stitch pattern from Pixell Patterns. This design uses eight colors and is shown worked on 14 count fabric, but the notes don’t indicate how bit is is (based on a finished project photo, though, it looks pretty big).

And for the Buzz Lightyear fans, of course we have to have a “To infinity and beyond” pattern, so here’s one from Silver Lake Stitches. This design is super cute on blue fabric, but use whatever you have. It measures 78 by 92 stitches, which comes out to 5.6 by 6.6 inches, or 14.2 by 16.7 cm, on 14 count fabric. It calls for 14 colors.

Or if you want to go beyond the core three main character toys, check out this project from ThreeOOne Patterns, which includes our main toys as well as Bo Peep and her sheep, Bullseye the horse, the Slinky dog, Rex, Ham, the Potato Heads and an alien. The design is 310 by 80 stitches, which comes out to 21.14 by 3.5 inches, or 53.7 by 8.9 cm, when worked on 14 count fabric. It uses 65 colors. Or pick out your favorite characters to make a smaller project.

All those characters and a few more are found on the mini Toy Story character sampler from Knotalot UK (only part of which is shown above). This one uses 31 colors and measures 134 by 108 stitches. It includes whole and fractional stitches, as well as back stitching. On 14 count fabric stitching the whole thing would make a project that’s 9.57 by 7.71 inches, or 24.31 by 19.59 cm.

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