Messing with Straight Stitching

Today's tutorial will show you how to use the Shear filter to add curves to a line of straight stitching. This tutorial has been tested in PSCS2 and PSE4, but should work in any version that has the shear filter.

Start with any straight line of stitching in your scrapping collection. I'm using a set of stitches from my Starting in Style Series. I've added a white background layer to my canvas to help the stitching show up better in the screen shots, your stitching should be surrounded by transparency.



In order to use the shear filter we need a couple of inches on either side of the stitching. If your canvas is cropped close to the stitching (as mine is), expand the canvas by going to Image -> Canvas Size (in PS) or Image -> Resize -> Canvas Size (in PSE).



Change the Height to 4 inches in the dialogue box and click 'OK'.



Next we are going to rotate the canvas 90 degrees clockwise. In PS, Image -> Rotate Canvas -> 90 degress CW. In PSE, Image -> Rotate -> 90 degrees R.



Next open your shear filter, Filter -> Distort -> Shear.



Click once to the right or left of the center line in the grid in the shear dialogue box. You'll see you've added a curve to the center line. This curve will also be applied to your stitching (once you've clicked OK, don't do it yet). Continue working with the grid until you've created the desired curved path. This effect works best with shallow, gentle curves. Most stitching is created with subtle shading and texture that will look off with large distortion, but should still look fine with the application of gentle curves.



Click 'OK' when you are satisfied with your curve path and you will be left with curvy stitching.



FREE SAMPLE
No Longer Available. Here is a sampler from my Rhapsody set. Rhapsody is one of the products on Close-Out at Scrapbook-Elements. These items will be available at clearance prices for another couple of weeks and then retired.