stitch
Function: verb
transitive senses
1 a : to fasten, join, or close with or as if with stitches b
: to make, mend, or decorate with or as if with stitches
2 : to unite by means of staples
intransitive senses : SEW
- stitch·er noun
Today we are talking about to decorate with stitches. One of the
trends in scrapbooking is to not use eyelets, brads, glue, or tape, but instead
sew your pages together with stitching. Here is a tutorial on making stitching
in PSP, but you could use any photo editor of choice to acheive the same
results. The resulting image will have a sample swatch, but you can use the same
technique on your pages.
| 1. |
Create a new image. |
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File-> New. Here, I've made it 250x250.
You can use any background color or pattern fill you happen to have. |
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| 2. |
Create the stitching.
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Set your foreground swatch to whatever
color you would like your stitches to be, here I've used B7671F. Set
the background swatch to null. Click on the 
or the 
Pen tool. In the tool ribbon for either tool, set the Line Style to
Dashed and the Width to about 4. Drag out your shape or draw your
line. Selections-> From Vector Object. Layers-> Convert to
Raster Layer. |
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| 3. |
Give the thread some dimension. |
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Layers-> New Raster Layer. Effects->
3D Effects-> Cutout. Set Offsets both to -2, Opacity to 100, Blur
to 4 and the color swatch to black. Layers-> New Raster Layer.
Effects-> 3D Effects-> Cutout. Set Offsets both to 2, Opacity to
100, Blur to 4 and the color swatch to white. In the layer control
palette, decrease the opacity of these two layers until you get an
effect to your liking. The amount of opacity will depend entirely upon
the stitching color. Here the black cutout is set to 70% and the white
cutout to 60%. Click on the background layer, Layers-> New Raster
Layer. Effects-> 3D Effects-> Drop Shadow. Set the Offsets both
to 1, Opacity to 100, Blur to 3 and the color swatch to black. In the
Layer Control Palette, decrease the opacity of this layer. Here I've
set it to 30%. Selections-> Select None. |
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| 4. |
Make "holes" for the
thread to go through. |
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In the Layer Control Palette, click on the background layer. Layers->
New Raster Layer. Set your foreground swatch to a dark shade of your
background color. Click on the 
Paint Brush tool. Set the tool back to its default values. Set the size
to about 6. Zoom in so that you can see what you're doing. Click at the
beginning and end of each stitch. On the Layer Control Palette decrease
the opacity of this layer. Here I've set it to 50%. |
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| 5. |
Give the thread some texture. |
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Depending upon the size of your stitches, they may need some texture to
appear more realistic. Click on the stitching layer. Adjust->
Add/Remove Noise-> Add Noise. Check Gaussian and Monochrome, set it
to about 30%. |
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| 6. |
Give your thread some character -
Optional |
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Real stitching is never perfect, even with guidelines drawn some
stitches will not be perfectly straight. We can replicate this effect by
using the Warp brush. In the Layer Control Palette turn off the visibility
of the background layer by clicking on the eye icon. Click on
any of the other layers, right click and choose Merge-> Merge
Visible. Turn the visibility of the background layer back on. Make the
merged layer active by clicking on it if it's not all ready the active
layer. Click on the 
Warp Brush. Set the Mode to 
Noise. Set the brush back to default, change the Size to about 50 and
the Strength to about 25. Drag over the stitching. When you're happy
with it, hit the 
Apply button. |
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