CELTIC KNOTS WITH Thred

I just discovered Celtic Knots! I've always wanted to do one, but have been put off as a satin stitch outline was just too hard for me!

When I started designing them, I realised that Celtic Knots are a great way to learn Thred. You can create a simple knot with just one form, and delete the stitches that are going over when they should be going under.

HOW TO CREATE THIS KNOT STEP BY STEP

(Click image to see enlargement)

You can print this page or save it for work off-line.

  1. Download Celtic Bitmap

  2. Open Thred. If it is already open, left click 'File' (menu bar), left click 'New'.

  3. Left Click 'Pref' (menu bar), left click 'Hoop Width' (not the words but the number we are going to change).
    In box enter '70'.
    Left click 'Hoop Height'. In box enter '70'.
    Left click 'Fill spacing'. In box enter '0.3'.
    Left click 'Satin border size'. In box enter '3'.
    Right Click to make the 'pref' box go away.

    (What you're doing here is setting your preferences. When a bitmap is loaded, it fills the screen. You change the 'hoop size' to specify the size of your finished embroidery, so that you don't have to manipulate the size of the bitmap. You are not actually specifying the hoop you are going to use.
    Fill spacing is density, and Satin border size is width of satin stitch.)

  4. Left Click 'File' (menu Bar), left click 'Load Bitmap'.
    Open the downloaded bitmap file 'cbcelt2.bmp'.
    This should appear on your Thred Screen as a template.

    If you do not see the bitmap, you need to change your color preferences - left click view (menu bar) / set / bitmap color. This needs to be set to an opposite color from your background color.

  5. Left Click 'Form' (menu bar), left click 'Free Hand'.
    Left click at any corner, then follow the knot (ignore overs and unders), and left click at each numbered point. After the last point (10) (do not connect up the form) right click anywhere and the form will complete the circuit. If your points are in the wrong place, then press the <esc> key (just to make sure nothing's selected), left click the point and drag it to where it should be.

  6. Right Click near a point to select the Form. A box should appear around the form.
    Left Click 'fill' (menu bar), left click 'Border' then 'Perpendicular Satin'. Your knot should fill with satin stitches. (Ain't this great?)

  7. Your knot is stitchable now, but to get the overs and unders you need to delete individual stitches.

  8. Do this for each junction in turn: put mouse cursor at junction and Zoom in ('Z' key) until you can see the stitch points properly. (on mine it's 2 'Z's.) ('A' takes the zoom out again) Look at the cross over and determine from the bitmap underneath which direction should be on top. Right click a stitch point on the direction going underneath and delete (delete key) until the stitches are not covering the one going on top. If the stitch is not the right one to delete, then reselect the correct stitch by right clicking, then delete. If you delete the wrong stitch, immediately click 'Undo' (menu bar). When finished the junction, make sure the 'jump stitch' lies directly across (not diagonally), otherwise the stitch will not lie flat across the other stitches. (Remember key 'S' will move the screen sideways - the center of the screen will be where the mouse cursor was.)

  9. When you've finished, left click 'Edit' (menu bar) / 'Set' / 'Knots'. This will add starting and ending tie-offs to your design.

    (By the way, you do not have to do Step 8 for every junction. If the stitch order is stitching over where it should be over, then you can leave the junction as it is. The extra stitches will not show. To find out the stitch number, look on the very left hand side of your screen, 6 boxes up from the bottom is 'Sel nnnn' where nnnn is the number of the stitch currently selected.)

You should now have a fabulous simple Knot ready to stitch. Save your file in the .thr format. The .pcs format should automatically be saved, so just open it in PCD Designer and send it to your Pfaff.
If your machine is not a Pfaff, convert the .pcs file with a conversion program such as Buzztools or Embird

Please send your comments to Caroline

Celtic Knots to Download in Thred format

Click on the image to download

More on Celtic Knots

I had assumed, in my ignorance, that to make a Celtic Knot I would play with a piece of string on my scanner, then just scan to get the design. Not so! They are extremely complex, and I am even more impressed with those ancients who originally produced them.

When trying to discover knot designs, I found an entire Science devoted to Celtic Knots (do a search on them - there are many wonderful sites!) and how to make them. I am indebted to a fabulous Celtic Knot making program called Knot3d at Steve Abbott's Computer Drawn Celtic Knotwork which does away with graph paper completely, and you can while away many hours randomly producing Celtic Knots (which can also be viewed in 3d).

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