Designing Blackwork Patterns

 Blackwork embroidery at a glance looks like one of the most complicated types of embroidery you could imagine. However, when it comes to physically creating a pattern, Blackwork is by far easier than any thing else.

 With Cross-Stitch patterns you have to worry about the correct shading of your pictures, or whether the shape is correct, in fact the same goes for most types of counted-thread patterns. The wonder of creating a Blackwork pattern is that, once you have created your shape or base picture, you simply fill it with repeating patterns. This could become difficult if you are relying on graph paper and pencil, but with the help of computer software, you will be surprised how quickly your Blackwork patterns come to life!

 There are plenty of different software packages available out there for people who wish to create counted-thread embroidery patterns, but for the matter of Blackwork, there are two that I would recommend.

 The first is a free program called, KG-Chart LE.

 Http://www.iktsoft.com/works/kgchart/download-e.php I would highly recommend this program to anyone regardless of the type of counted-thread embroidery they are trying to create patterns for, as I have found it to be so useful, the fact that it is free is just a bonus. With this program you are able to use colours to colour in each square or half square as you would for cross-stitch or using the next tab you can use backstitch, which for all other purposes works brilliantly for Blackwork. I would recommend using this program for all your finished Blackwork patterns simply because the printing is exceptional. I have found that there is a fault with most other programs of this sort, being that if you complete a pattern entirely in back-stitch, you can only see the diagonal lines on the printed pattern, as the rest of the horizontal and vertical lines are the same width as the graph lines, making it near impossible to see them. Where as KG-Chart LE, prints the back-stitch lines in a much broader line, making it easy to see the pattern. KG-Chart LE, also offers a small range of other stitches for your use, although these are great for Blackwork, they are very limited. This is why I also use another program, which has a seemingly endless supply of different Blackwork stitches, not only to be able to use these stitches, but they are brilliant for inspiration.

 This program is Cross Stitch Studio 2004 Edition (by Mindscape). I was delighted with this program as I originally downloaded a trial version (under a different name), which would have cost a lot more to have as a full version. I purchased this on Amazon, and have found that it is excellent for Cross Stitch patterns, although as I said before, there is a problem with printing Blackwork patterns. However, the range of stitches and other features available with this is excellent, so I would highly recommend purchasing it, and then using it for ideas to put on to your KG-Chart software. Of course if you are a keen cross stitcher then this piece of software would be ideal for you.

 If you are not entirely happy drawing pictures by hand on the PC, then a nice little trick for use with the KG-Chart software is to import a picture. Choose a picture from your hard drive and import it. You’ll then see the picture converted into coloured squares, this is ideal for Cross-stitch, but as you want to create a Blackwork pattern these colours are pretty useless to you. A good way to create the Blackwork pattern is to go to the back-stitch tab and then using the back-stitch stitch, go around the edges of this new picture to create the shape. The wonderful thing about this program is that if you then switch back to the normal tab you can delete all those coloured squares without deleting the back-stitches. When you’ve finished deleting you are left with an outline of your picture, all you have to do then is to fill the different sections of your picture with your Blackwork repeating pattern stitches. If you’re unsure as to whether you are happy with the piece or not, you can click in one of the menus to see the real view (this is a computer generated version of what the piece will look like finished), if you’re not happy with it you can then change it.

 Using computer software may not be the traditional method of creating Blackwork patterns, but it is by far the easiest.