I'm designing a sweater for my grandson with his favorite (English) cartoon character on the front. (Peppa Pig) It's been a while since I've worked with single motifs, so I had to review the process. It's not very intuitive, so I'm keeping the steps in a DAK Tips and Techniques file on my computer for next time.
1. Design your motif and your sweater first. On your motif, make sure your background color (right mouse button) is the color you'll use on the sweater background. Also, make sure your motif includes only the height and width of the motif and check that it is the right number of stitches and rows to fit comfortably onto the front of the sweater. Baby and children's sweaters can be small so the right motif is important. Go Options...tensions to put in your swatch information.
2. In Stitch Designer, go File...new pattern set-up. Choose the pattern and choose either back or front. It's probably just my program, but if I chose front first then the pattern, it would flip to back. IF I chose the pattern first then the side of the sweater, it stayed where I wanted it.
3. On the next screen, Tensions and notes, fill in what you want.
4. A blank screen appears with the background color you specified and the number of stitches and rows needed. Go Edit...Import a single motif. Choose the motif.
5. If you click the 4th icon from the right on the top bar, you will get a cut out and it's easier to see what your piece will look like. Left click, hold and drag the motif to the location you want. Save.
6. You can either knit the piece interactively with the motif integrated OR you can print the garment notation pattern out to follow. Then download the motif to your machine positioning it where you want it. Set your machine for fairisle. The machine will take care of the design and you will just need to follow the garment notation chart.
There will be long floats because I just want the outline, so I think I'll purchase some of that iron on stuff that stretches a little to enclose the floats. Let's hope he doesn't change his mind about who's the best character before I get this knit. If you're interested in Peppa, you can swipe a picture from this website http://www.peppapig.com/ There are coloring book pages that convert nicely to DAK stitch patterns. I think it's ok as long as you don't sell items made with those images but knit them as gifts. Maybe I'll do George instead:
