| Stitch This!

F. A. Q.

Q: | Why is the number of pages shown in red? | A: | This means that the image will take over 30 pages of output to process. You can ignore this, but the ensuing project may take a significant portion of your life to complete!
Q: | A message says this will take n pages to print charts. Can I ignore this? | A: | This is similar to the above question. It's there mainly to warn you that the image is so large that you may lose heart before finishing it as a needlework project. If you have endless patience (and enough paper in your printer), and are prepared to commit several years to working on one project, go ahead and ignore this - the app will still generate output, but rather a lot of it!
Q: | I'm seeing SBBOD ('the Spinning Beach Ball Of Death') while generating a PDF. Should I be worried? | A: | This is just a message from the system that the process cannot be interrupted. So long as the progress bar, near the base of the window, is still moving, this is perfectly normal, and you should let the process continue. If however the progress bar has not appeared, or is showing no sign of moving after a significant period of time (say, 10-15 seconds), there is something else wrong, and you may use Force Quit from the Apple menu to terminate this process - then try reloading the app and try again.
Q: | I've moved away from the app while it was generating, and now I can't see what it's up to. Should I force-quit it? | A: | Unfortunately, while generating output, the process does take some time to format the image for PDF output. Don't lose heart - it should complete eventually, and the app will reappear of its own volition once the output process is complete.
Q: | Why reduce my image? | A: | Most image files stored on computers are many hundreds, or even thousands of pixels wide, but are rarely displayed at that resolution. Modern digital cameras can record pictures at resolutions of over 20 million pixels ("megapixels"). Since this app takes a picture and generates a pattern from one stitch per pixel, it might take several lifetimes and an enormous and expensive canvas to complete it at the original resolution. If your chosen fabric is fairly typical, it would probably be 14 or 18 stitches per inch. Not resizing your image will result in a massive and very time-consuming project. Each full page of printed output represents 7,000 stitches - and a seasoned and dedicated needleworker, putting in maybe a couple of hours a day (perhaps more at weekends), might complete one page in three or four weeks. So a project with 30 pages of output might take upwards of 2½ years to complete. If you are that dedicated (and frankly, we are!), that's not an issue, but you still need to reduce the original to around 300 x 700 for an image in that 'ballpark'. Anything larger will likely be impractical. That's not to say that the app won't let you do that - you can go as large as you like, within reason. It will warn you, though.
Q: | I clicked Reduce, but nothing happened. Why? | A: | Either you didn't change the height or width dimensions, or the cursor remained in the field when you clicked Reduce. Leaving that field or pressing return causes the other dimension to be recalculated, and then the reduction can take place.
Q: | What's the little padlock icon () for? | A: | This control locks the image's width and height dimensions together, so that if you enter a different value against one, the app will automatically recalculate the other, so as to retain the image's width-to-height ("aspect") ratio. You can 'unlock', but then changing just one dimension will only change that one, and clicking Reduce will stretch or shrink the image on that one dimension. You have to press return or leave the size field before the Reduce will work.
Q: | Why are there less 'distinct' colours than I matched with? | A: | After reducing, the second image has the best 256 or less colours. You then opt to match to a preferred number of colours from your chosen thread-range. Some colours in the image may be quite close to one another, and the matching process could assign more than one shade to the same thread. Therefore, you won't get exactly the number of colours you entered - invariably less. Also, to make the project more workable, any colours for which there will be minimal numbers of stitches can be 'merged' to their nearest equivalents, to prevent having to needlessly buy skeins out of which you might only need a few stitches. Please see Merge in the Match process for further details.
Q: | What if I've defined a 50-symbol set, but I want to process an image with more than 50 colours - what will it do then? | A: | The process will use your fifty symbols, and allocate any additional ones from other available symbols it finds, so your symbol set will be used, but augmented.
Q: | Why can I only save the image as a .bmp file? | A: | This file type has been selected for output because it can readily store palette information, which is useful when dealing with reduced colour images such as those processed by this app.
Q: | How do I eliminate symbols which are visually similar and could be confused? | A: | When selecting symbols, or defining symbol sets, the app automatically removes any it considers to be easily confused. Therefore this shouldn't happen. If there are still some symbols which you find confusing, create your own symbol set (see Preferences | Symbols), where you can ensure that the symbols used are ones you would choose.
Q: | Why does more than one symbol disappear from the pool of available symbols when I'm building a Symbol Set? | A: | As per the previous question, there are numerous symbols in the full set which could easily be confused - so for example, there are five black triangles on the first line. When working on a project, it's too easy to confuse one black triangle for another. So the app removes all the others from the pool of available symbols once you have chosen one. This will happen all the time you are defining your symbol sets. However, if you remove a symbol from a set, it, and any like it, will return to the pool. Likewise, if you press Clear, and remove all symbols from the current set, all of those symbols and their 'similars' will return to the pool. Moreover, if you opt not to utilise a symbol set at all, and just allow the app to allocate them for you, it will still remove any 'similars' when choosing each symbol - but not necessarily those that you personally find confusing. If you didn't like the symbol set preselected for your image, try clicking the Default entry in the user dropdown, and it should choose a different set for you.
Q: | What if I've set up my 50-colour symbol set, and I choose to output an image with more than 50 colours? | A: | The output will use the 50 symbols from your set, and augment them with others from the pool. Since it is quite painstaking using over 50 colours, it was considered that 50 should ordinarily be more than enough to be working with.
Q: | Where's it going to put the output PDF file? | A: | Where you choose in the File | Save dialog. It will default to wherever the image being processed was found, but you can put it where you like, within reason.
Q: | What are 'Thread Cards'? | A: |
| When you're working on a project, you'll have lengths of unused thread - not every time you use a thread will you use an entire length; you'll often use part of a length now, and need to keep the remainder for the next time you'll be using that colour. If you're using stranded cotton, it usually consists of six strands, and when you cut a length off, you would normally separate off and work with perhaps two or three, leaving a length or two unused, but detached from the skein. A 'Thread Card' is what the name suggests: a card on to which you can loop those lengths of thread (an 'Organiser', if you will). The output Thread Cards are formatted with each colour a set distance apart, so that a conventional 2-hole holepunch [ISO 838] can be used to create holes evenly spaced along each side of the card. It's recommended you laminate the card first. If you do, allow a small laminate margin (say, 3mm or ⅛ in.) all round to seal all the sides of the card. Once it has cooled and the edges sealed and suitably trimmed (you may wish to 'round' the corners of the laminate - they can be quite sharp when cut), you can then punch the holes. Line up both punch-blades with the horizontal lines alongside each colour/symbol entry.
Q: | Why are colours on the Key Page and Thread Cards in a different order from the Shopping List? | A: | Colours on the Key Page and Thread Cards are sorted by 'luminance' (darkest to lightest). Experience tells us that if you've just cut off a length of thread you've been working with, and you're looking for the right place on your Thread Card to hold it, you may not have its colour number to hand, but will know the symbol: it therefore makes sense to look for it by its lightness; both the colours and symbols are arranged by shade. The Shopping List, however, is ordered by Thread No from your range - because virtually every stockist (local craft shop or online store) will arrange them by colour number. If you're looking to re-order threads when you're running low on a few, it's really handy having the list in colour number order, so you may want to keep hold of your Shopping List, even after you've bought the initial supplies for your project.
Q: | Do my Thread Cards have to be printed on card? | A: | If you intend to laminate them, a thick paper is fine; otherwise, use as thick a card as your printer can take.
Q: | What are the little triangles on the edge of some charts? | A: | They mark the halfway point on each dimension, and appear top and bottom on the pages across, and left and right on the pages down. The page with the exact centre of the image will have these markers on all four edges of the graph.
Q: | What are 'Spares'? | A: | Experienced needleworkers will have threads left over from previous projects, and may wish to keep a record of those they have left over that may be available for use in future projects - especially if the stockist of choice has a particular manufacturer's range. If you are one of them, you can log these via the Spares Manager. When generating the Shopping List, the app will flag any that have counts updated in the Spares Manager, so that you don't end up buying those colours when you're getting your project started.
Q: | What does the term 'dithered' mean? | A: | Much of colour reduction amounts to working out the closeness of shades and the amount of them, creating averages and utilising those. However, some methods use dithering - which is a process of visually creating a third colour by putting pixels of two separate shades alongside one another. From a distance, these can be just as effective. From a needlework point of view, dithering actually works rather well, since we are always putting stitches of one colour alongside another, and it can often create quite a pleasing blend without detracting from the overall appearance of the finished work.