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 These
instructions were written for DesignaKnit 6 - the instructions for DesignaKnit
7 will be much the same.
Windows has various fonts installed as standard. If you have installed either
a word processing or desktop publishing package then the chances are that you
will have many more.
Most of them will be simple letters and numbers, for instance Times New Roman,
or Courier. You may be surprised to discover that there are also some fonts that
are little 'pictures'. Wingdings is one of these, and this is a standard Windows
font. I have discovered some quite unusual ones on my computer, for instance 'Food',
'Animals', and my favourite 'Botanical' which is a collection of little flowers.
These 'picture fonts' can easily be used to create motifs and stitch patterns
in Designaknit.
One way of looking at them is to open your word processor e.g. Word Pad, Write,
MS Word or Word Perfect - but not Notepad, as it's too basic to be able to change
the fonts. Simply select the drop down list to pick the font you want to look
at and type something. It's best to increase the size, perhaps to 28pts or larger
to make it easier to see. Try typing in both lower and upper case, you'll get
different pictures for each. Don't leave out the numbers, they'll work too.
I'm going to show how to design a sweater with a single motif on the front, though
it's just as easy to design a repeating stitch pattern for an all over design.
First of all, either load an existing shape file from Standard or Original shaping,
or design a new one. Make sure that it's been saved, and then click on Stitch
Designer. Click on File/New, and a screen will appear as below.
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As I'm placing a single motif on the sweater front, the next step
is to click on 'FRONT'. Another screen will appear with your sweater front superimposed
on a stitch background.
Next click on the selection box tool, and draw a box on the sweater front where
you want the motif to appear. It's probably best to keep it fairly square, so
that the picture will stay well proportioned. Turn on the tagged selection box
if you need to alter the position of the box, and drag it into place. Check that
your Right Mouse Button colour is marked transparent (it will have a cross in
its box on the palette), and that your left mouse button colour is the colour
you want your picture to be. This colour should be opaque, with no cross on the
palette.
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Click on the text tool, and this box will appear.
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Choose the font in the drop down box at the lower right of the
screen. 'Fit to box' and 'Fit inside box' should both be selected. Now enter your
text at the top of the box. Hold down the SHIFT key and type 9, for a left-hand
bracket, then click OK. We're now back to Stitch Designer, with a large telephone
motif on the sweater piece. Turn on the tagged selection box to move the picture
if necessary. You can either leave it as it is, or colour it for intarsia knitting.
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Of course, you don't have to just use a picture font for single
motif knitting. Click File/New, and and click 'Manually set size' from the choices,
and then click OK. Enter the number of stitches and rows for your new pattern.
I chose 40 x 40 for this example. Position the selection box around the whole
pattern, and again click the text tool. This time, type the capital letter T,
still with the wingdings font selected. This gives you a snowflake design as below
which could easily be the basis for a large repeating all over design.
This next picture shows four repeats, which needs some work before
it's knitted, but it's got potential.
Have a look at the fonts on your computer, to see just what you've
got hiding in the fonts folder. You could find just the picture you've been looking
for, but couldn't draw!
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