 
 Tutorial: How to Draw Tatting Diagrams
The image needs a little cropping to remove the uneven edge. Click on the Crop tool
Hover your mouse over the picture of the lace you want to crop, and left click and drag until the crop area is the right size. It will let you drag the crop area just as you would an ordinary window, the cursor appearance is the same for the drag options. When you have it as you want it, either click on Crop Image in the Tool Options box or double click on the picture. Either way it will automatically resize to the cropped area.
Click on the Preset Shapes Tool.
In the Tool Options - Preset Shapes toolbox, make sure the Ellipse is selected. Retain Style unchecked, create as vector and antialias should both be checked.
Click on the Node Edit tool.
Click and drag the bottom node down a little, then hover the mouse round it until you see the cursor change style again. You should see a double curved line when you are hovering over the node arrows. Select and drag a little - it's difficult to see what you're doing here! Repeat on the other side until the ring is a roughly symmetrical oval with a little point at the bottom. Then double click on the bottom node and all four will change colour to a solid box - this locks the node edit selection.
Click on the Mover tool. Make sure the 2nd Ring layer is selected and click on the picture. Hold and drag the layer down until the 2nd ring is where you want it. Repeat 21-23 until all the rings down the middle of the cross are selected. Highlight the 2nd Layer, right click on the layer in the Layer Toolbox as before and click on Duplicate. Rename it to 1st Left Ring.
Duplicate this layer in the same way as you duplicated the layers for the downward pointing rings, select the mover tool and drag the new layer to the left as before. Repeat Steps 24-26 but setting the Rotate Properties Box to rotate the image to the Right. Now we need to draw the bead at the bottom. Select the Background layer, right click and click on Promote to Layer. Rename the new layer to Bead. Right click on this layer again, and click on Duplicate. Rename the bottom layer to Background and highlight the Bead layer again.
Click on the Freehand Selection Tool.
Click on Effects, Plugins and choose any style you like - I chose a Blade Pro Filter Effect. Click on the Copy button (to copy the selection into the Clipboard), make the other layers visible and delete the Bead layer. Make sure the Background layer is selected, Click on Layer - New Raster Layer. Name this layer Bead Layer.
Now we need to add the picots that are shown at the ends of the arms of the cross. Select the Preset Shapes tool again and change the colour in the Styles box to Green. Leave it selected as Ellipse. Click on the View menu and select Zoom in by 1. This will make it easier to see what you are doing. Right click on the 8th Ring Layer in the Layers toolbox and select New Vector Layer. Name this layer Picot 1. As before when you drew the ring, but this time right at the end of one of the arms of the cross, draw a tiny oval. Right click on the Picot 1 Layer and select Duplicate. Rename this layer to Picot 2. Click on Image - Rotate and select Right and 90 in the pop up menu box. Select the Mover Tool and drag the new picot to where you want it. Reselect the Picot 1 layer and repeat 38 and 39, but rotate the picot to the Left. Now we need to Free Rotate the picots to allow us to place them at the joining points. Select the Picot 1 layer again and duplicate it. Rename this layer to Joining Picot 1.
Click the Mover Tool and drag the layer to the correct position. The Joining Picot 2 can be at the same angle, just duplicate the Joining Picot 1 layer and rename to Joining Picot 2, then use the Mover Tool again and drag the layer to the correct position as before.
At this point, it's a good idea to merge the layers and save the file. Click on Layers - Merge - Merge Visible (this will allow you to retain the image transparency). Rename the new single layer to Background, click on File Export - and choose either Gif or JPEG Optimiser - just follow through the options to save it ready optimised for the Web. We need to tell people how many double stitches to make for the rings. Click on the Text tool. Click to the inside of one of the centre rings and set your preferred text options, type in the required number of stitches (here it is 4). Drag the text to the appropriate position, click on Control-D to deselect and repeat between each picot/joining intersection on the Ring. Please note - I chose Verdana Size 10 as this is a Web Safe Font but as this is an image you can choose any font you want. Just remember this is a diagram so people need to be able to read it. The diagram is shown below with the four rings and text.
Run the Gif Optimiser to save the final version of the file. Is your pattern done yet? No! You need the original picture as well! All is not lost. Go back to the final drawing - you will see it still has the original name - tinycross1 - at the top. Click on File Close, and click on No. The changes have not been saved but you have made a new image using the Gif Optimiser, and you have the original drawing for the diagram page. The next step is writing the instructions - you MUST give details of the meanings of the different parts of your diagram, and it's a good idea to give text instructions as well so that people who don't know the techniques you have used can learn how to do it! In this tutorial you will be creating your own image from scratch and you may therefore use anything you make from it anywhere you like - on stationery, for personal purposes or on your web site - images you make from my tutorials are yours. If you do use any images made from it a link back would be appreciated but is not an absolute requirement. Please do not sell this tutorial, upload it to your own server or send them through e-mail. You may save them to your hard drive and to CD for backup purposes only. Please do not link directly to my images. If you wish to use my images on your business site, please contact me. Groups if you feel there is something here your members can learn from you are most welcome to share this site, please let me know beforehand via the e-mail link at the bottom of this page, and let me see your group results - I would love to see what you do with the tutorials, and would also like to link back to you.
Copyright © Gillian Buchanan 2003 |
Here is the picture you will need for the Tutorial. Please right click on it and then save it to your hard drive.
Open the picture of the piece you want to diagram in Paint Shop Pro. The Layer and Tool Options boxes should be displayed on the screen.
. On the Tool Options box click on the Crop Settings button. Set as shown.
If the Layers palette is not open, click on the Layers tool at the top of the screen.
Right click on the Background layer to bring up the Layers Menu. Left click on the New Vector Layer option, re-name the layer to Rings (shown in the box on the Right) and click on OK.
Click on the Styles button at the right of the screen. Make sure it is set to Plain by clicking on the paint brush shape on the far left of the pop up menu. Set the colour of the Foreground style button to Blue. Set the colour of the Background button to White.
Go to the Layer palette and make sure the Rings layer is selected.
Draw a small ring on top of one of the tatted rings in the picture of the cross. You may find it is not quite where you wanted it or the size you wanted it. Leave the box selection showing and you can use it to resize the ring by clicking and dragging the little boxes round the selection. Drag it until it is directly at the top of the ring, leaving a little showing at the bottom - tatted rings are OVAL, not CIRCULAR, with a point at one end.
In the Node Edit Tool Options Box, click on Node Edit.
In your picture, right click on the bottom node. Left click on Node Type. Make sure Cusp is grayed out (selected).
Right click on one of the nodes (doesn't matter which one) and left click on Quit Node Editing in the menu. If you are happy with the ring as it stands, click Control-D to deselect, if not, click on Node Edit again and continue until it looks right.
Right click on the Rings layer in the Layer toolbox and select Duplicate. Double click on the new layer and re-name it to 2nd Ring.
Click the Image menu at the top of the screen and click on Rotate. Select 90 degrees and Left in the menu box which appears. Click on the Mover tool again and drag the layer down until the ring appears as shown.
It helps to make the other layers invisible at this stage so that you can see what you are doing by clicking on the "spectacles" beside each layer in the Layer Palette.
In the Tool Options box, select Smart Edge, feather is 0, Antialias is selected. "Draw" round the bead carefully, clicking once at each point in the curve at regular intervals. When you come back to the beginning, double click. A dotted line will then appear round the bead.
Click on Edit - Paste - As Transparent Selection. The bead will reappear (like magic) under your mouse cursor. Just place it where you want it on the drawing and double click to release it! You can see (crosswithbead.gif) that the original bead wasn't quite where I wanted it in the final picture, so I moved the new bead over slightly. This will not show in the finished diagram.
Click on Image - Rotate, and select as shown. Click on OK.
Reselect the Picot 1 Layer and duplicate it, rename to Joining Picot 3. Click on Image - Rotate and select as shown . Drag the new picot to its position, and duplicate as before for the final joining picot.
Select the Background layer, right click on it and click on Delete. The transparent cross appears as shown on the right.
Finally, in the same way we need to add the number of stitches to the other rings but this time it is 8 stitches between each intersection or picot. I tidied up the picture using the Brush tool to paint out pixels I didn't want in the final result, and I also made it into a Transparent Gif. If it were a JPG I would not need to do this because the layers were merged using the Merge Visible option.