Spread sheet of the patterns

You may be able to click and download into your own spreadsheet program. Then it will be easier to edit and give you a template for experimenting.  The spreadsheet was composed in Microsoft 2002 on a PC.

How to Use Excel to Design Peeries and other knitting charts

(This is an edited version of what I posted to Norgeknit in Feb 2004.)

In the meantime, Excel came with the PC, I already know how to use it to do  basics like color and size cells, copy and paste them, and size them to print on one page.  If I cared or needed to indicate a different stitch, I could also put in a simple pattern in each cell as well as color.  The stitch painters let you do this using standard knitting symbols and more colors than Excel comes with.  (Though I suspect I could copy and paste from one of the public sites with stitch symbols and paste it into Excel - but I haven't needed to try that.) What I  think the stitch painter programs will also do is let you import a graphic it and then change it.  That would be very nice! 

  I looked briefly at the shareware ones for cross-stitch, needlepoint, beading, etc. on download.com and at two commercial ones and decided that, since I'm just begining, Excel is just fine.  To get the patterns onto the webpage I can print them out and then use a scanner to make a JPG, or turn the spreadsheet into a webpage and then edit it.

  Here are the steps I go through in Excel - and there are lots of steps, but it takes much longer to explain them than to actually do them.  It goes very fast and I'd be happy to talk you through it, if my explanation doesn't make sense.

  I set the width of all columns to 2 and leave the rows alone.  I select all the cells and use the "Fill Color" tool to color them all gray.  Then block out the starting grid, of 4 rows and 4 colums for example, format the cells in the grid to give them a external and internal border, and then use Fill Color to turn the grid white - or whatever color you like in the Excel palette.  Copy and past the grid onto the grey background a couple of times so you've got a bunch of   grids to work with.  Select where you want a cell to be black (or whatever other color you want) and use Fill Color to change it.  Color in multiple cells by holding down the control key as you select cells by clicking on them.