MotifSmithOne Chart, Four Crafts: Crochet, Knitting, Filet and Perler Beads
A colorwork chart is a grid of colors, so one design can become crochet, knitting, filet or fuse beads. What changes is the stitch shape, the colors and the detail.
A colorwork chart is really just a grid of colors, so the same design can be made in crochet, knitting, filet crochet or fuse beads. Three things change when you move it across crafts. Get those right and the design survives.
1. The shape of each cell
This is what usually goes wrong. If you follow a bead pattern square for square in crochet, the picture comes out stretched sideways, because the stitches aren't square.
| Craft | Cell shape | What happens to 48 rows of crochet |
|---|---|---|
| Single crochet | About 1.2 wide to 1 tall | 48 rows |
| Knitting | About 1.3 wide to 1 tall | About 52 rows |
| Filet crochet | Square | 40 rows |
| Fuse beads | Square | 40 beads tall |
These proportions are typical values rather than measurements of your work. Your tension changes them, so make a swatch before starting anything large.
2. The colors
Yarn colors can be chosen freely, but beads come in fixed cards. Moving a design to beads means matching each color to the nearest bead of your brand, and two colors can land on the same bead. See Perler vs Hama vs Artkal vs MARD for how the cards differ.
Filet has only two states, open and filled, so color turns into light and dark. Bold shapes and names survive this well; a design that depends on similar colors may not.
3. How much detail it can hold
Detail depends on the number of cells. A 58-bead piece and a 58-stitch crochet piece hold the same amount of detail, though they end up different sizes. With 5 mm beads, 58 beads is about 29 cm, while 58 worsted-weight stitches is usually bigger. The yarn calculator works out crochet sizes.
How to switch in MotifSmith
Open any design in the pattern designer and choose Crochet, Filet, Knit or Beads. The chart, the colors and the 3D preview change straight away, and anything you edited by hand stays. Every design in the gallery can be viewed the same way. Then open the board to make it, with a color highlight, rulers and optional marking.
Sharing one design this way doesn't change who owns it. If a chart is someone else's, check how it may be used first.