As I mentioned in last week’s post about stitches, stitching elements add an additional layer of interest to our layouts. They are particularly useful as a way to anchor one thing to another. They can be used to just add extra touches to things like on ephemera or photo frames. They are also a great way to create a border or divider on your page. Truthfully, they can be used for just about anything you like!

Last week I talked exclusively about using brushes to create stitching. Did you know that in addition to brushes, you can also create a stitch with text? Type stitches by using a simple hyphen or one of several other characters: the equal sign, the plus sign, the asterisk, a lowercase x or v, a capital T, the ~ character, the forward and backward “slash” characters, or even the > or < characters. Those last two can be used alternately for an interesting look.

Even though you likely have stitches in some of the kits you’ve already purchased, you might really want to create your own custom designed stitching…and maybe not always in a straight line. Today’s post is going to be about how to “type” your very own, unique stitching…

Texting Stitches

If all you want is a straight line of stitches it’s a simple matter to just create a line of stitches using one of the above-mentioned characters & typing with the standard Horizontal Type tool.

You’d be surprised at how many basic “hand stitching” stitches can be replicated with the right font at the right settings. All but a very few of the ones shown below can be created with a font:

I think the Horizontal Type tool, is pretty self-explanatory and easy to figure out. All you have to do is pick a font, a character and then just type your stitching. The “trick” to getting the text to line up like stitches is all in the font “type”, size and tracking. By playing with all of those it’s fairly easy to replicate most of the stitches shown above.

Some of the stitch patterns shown above will require having multiple stitch layers in order to replicate the look. But that too is pretty easy. I’ll briefly explain how to replicate this pattern:

Select the Horizontal Text tool and pick your font. Just type a line of capital Xs. You will need to adjust the tracking (using a negative setting) to ensure the Xs touch each other or are at least VERY close to touching.

Next select the Horizontal Text tool again. You’ll normally want to use the exact same font as the one for the Xs. Then type a line of underscores until the line is as long as your row of Xs. PSE will automatically place this text on a “new” layer which is exactly what needs to happen. For this “line” your tracking can typically be set to 0 (zero) when using the underscore character. In some cases, you may need to adjust the tracking if you want your “straight line” edges to be flush with each end of the Xs. Or you can just re-size the line after you’ve closed the text box…whichever is easiest.

Once you’re happy with the straight line, position it over the top of the Xs exactly where you want it. Then just duplicate that straight line layer and move it to the bottom of the Xs. Here’s mine:

If you plan to apply a style to these stitches, I recommend placing the layers for the straight lines beneath the Xs layer. This will tend to make the stich look more natural.

So how easy was that?

But there are three other text tools in Photoshop Elements (PSE) that work great when you want something other than a straight line: Text on Selection, Text on Shape & Text on Custom Path.

Text on Custom Path will be the focus of today’s post. I’ll be showing you some examples for each of the other two over the next couple of weeks. It’s summer here in the US and I’m trying to keep my posts a bit shorter.

Text on Custom Path

A quick reminder before I go further…I use the current version of PSE (2024). Some of my screen shots may look different than what you see on your screen depending on the version you are using.

Note: If you’re using a version of PSE that’s older than PSE 2010, I don’t believe you have this option so you might want to skip this post and come back next week to learn about Text On Shape.

As you likely know by now, I typically choose to work on a transparent 12×12 canvas, since it’s my preferred layout size. But today I’m actually going to just pull in a piece of denim paper from my stash (not sure from where or by whom):

You can see there’s a pocket on this denim and it only shows stitching across the top of the pocket. I want to change that.

If you’re following along you can accomplish the same results without using a piece of paper with a pocket. You can choose to just make your stitching on a blank canvas following the same steps I’m about to show you. And there’s no reason this can’t be accomplished on a smaller or larger scale, so do what suits you best.

If you’ve been reading my posts for any length of time at all, you know I like to keep things like brushes, paint and yes, stitches, on their own layer. So, I’m going to start by adding a new blank layer above the denim layer. I name this new layer “Stitching”.

Next, I’m going to try and pick a nice color from the pocket’s existing stitching so my “typed” stitches at least sort of match. The color I selected ended up being a medium shade of orange (#de8b32).

Now for the tricky part…at least for me. It’s time to draw that custom path. I don’t know about you, but this is often a daunting task for me. I’ve always had a horrible time digitally drawing any non-straight line that didn’t end up looking more jagged than smooth.

And it certainly is tough to get curves that look natural. I’ve often wondered if it is because I’m older and my hands aren’t as steady as they used to be. Or perhaps it’s more a matter of my declining dexterity due to Rheumatoid Arthritis. Either way, creating a “clean” text path in any instance is a bit of a challenge for me. But that’s why we have the “Modify” feature 😉

Moving on…I select the Text tool and then select the Text on Custom Path tool (or press T):

Note: When you hover over the tool PSE displays the name as “Text on a Custom Path”. But when you look in the tool options area it merely says “Text on Path”. I’m only pointing that out as I didn’t want you to be confused.

You can see the color I’ve selected is already there, the font is set to Georgia Regular (which I believe is a default when starting with a new document). I have set the size to 40pt and ensured that the Draw option is selected.

For what I’m doing I can use just about any font that includes the hyphen character. Though I do recommend that you stick with a fairly basic sans serif font. You certainly don’t want a “cockeyed” stitch. At least not in most cases 😉 Regardless, I’m fine with the Georgia font.

Next, I just drag the tool (looks like an old “fountain pen” tip with a string attached). And if you don’t know what a fountain pen is…you’re much, much, much younger than I 😊 Anyway, I drug the tool only part way around just to keep this a bit simpler for now:

I then click the check-mark to confirm I’ve completed the path. You can see the path is jagged in more than a few spots. But I can fix that. I select the Modify tool (it may say Refine in older versions of PSE). It is also often referred to as the “Direct Selection Tool”:

Here’s what the path looks like after selecting Modify:

All of those little “dots” or nodes you now see all along the path are “Anchor Points”. In case you don’t know about anchor points, I’d love to tell you to check a tutorial or two. Unfortunately, I’ve not had good luck finding one that pertains specifically to anchor points in PSE. The best I can do is offer you these few quick notes from the Adobe Help Center:

• Select anchor points: Click on an anchor point or direction point to select it. Anchor points that are active will appear as filled squares, while inactive anchor points will appear as hollow squares.
• Adjust the length or angle of straight segments: Select an anchor point on the segment, then drag it to the desired position.
• Adjust the position or shape of curved segments: Select a curved segment, or an anchor point on either end of the curved segment, then drag the segment. You can also Shift-drag to constrain the adjustment to multiples of 45°.

As far as I’m aware the is no way in PSE to delete an anchor point. If you want to have more options and control when editing anchor points, you’ll need to upgrade to full Photoshop.

I wish I could give you better pointers than this. It certainly isn’t as easy (especially for a beginner) as Adobe makes it sound. It takes a lot of fussing and patience if you have a lot of jagged anchor points. But it can be done. And like everything else, the more you do it the better you’ll get at it.

I’m going to zoom in very, very close so I can see each anchor point and decide what needs to be moved:

It might be a bit hard for you to see the path & anchor points as they’re so light and almost blend in with the denim. I was hoping just to give you an idea of how you can more easily see each individual anchor point when you zoom in on the path.

So now I just click on any of the anchor points where I need to alter the shape of the path and make all the adjustments necessary. When I’m finished all I have to do is click the check-mark to confirm the modifications. After a lot of fiddling, this is what the modified path looks like now:

It’s certainly not perfect but it’ll do the trick. Now I just position the cursor over the very top (beginning) of the path which is where I want to start the “stitching”. I need to be sure the cursor icon changes to depict text mode. It should look like a capital “i” with a curvy line running through it (also called the I-Beam). When that I-Beam appears I then just type my hyphen character until I get about half-way to the end.

I stop at this point to adjust the tracking until I’m happy with the spacing of the stitches. I ended up using a tracking of 150:

Is it still a little wonky? Yes, but I actually like (mostly) the way it turned out. I especially like the spot where it looks like a stitch is “broken”. That kind of adds some character & realism to the stitching.

And I can now apply any one of the styles I mentioned in last week’s post to the “text” stitching including the “manual” process I outlined. I decided to go with the String Photoshop Style by Karen Schulz:

Note: Normally I duplicate the text layer before applying any style (manual or purchased) in order to preserve the original font in case I need to make changes later. I hide the text layer and rename the duplicate layer to “Stitching For Style”. I then also simplify this layer so the edges of the text are “crisp”.

With that stitching on its own layer I can actually finish the stitching in a very simple way. All I have to do is duplicate the stitching layer, rotate it horizontally, reposition it over to the right side of the pocket and transform it in any other way necessary to complete the pocket stitching:

And there’s a stitched pocked using text!

To be perfectly honest with you, I have such a hard time creating paths that I feel fairly confident I normally wouldn’t have used Text on Custom Path to stitch that pocket. I would do something that ultimately is a lot easier for me. Join me next week and I’ll show you how I do that.

One more quick thing before I let you go…

Stitching Fonts

A rare little gem for you. There are some actual “Stitching” fonts. Since they are fonts, you can use them in any way you use a regular font. And they will follow any path your specific software package allows. There aren’t hardly any of them around anymore but here is one:

And you can apply styles to these the same as you would if you used a brush. If you’re interested, you can get this bundle or either pack separately at Creation Cassle.

Extra Tips On Text Stitches

When you’re using text to create stitching be sure to experiment with different fonts. Serif fonts will provide a completely different look than a sans serif font. Try to avoid script or overly decorative fonts. Though some could work depending on the application. As always, experimentation is the key.

Keep in mind that changing font size, justification and tracking are key in helping you create basic stitches.

And don’t forget…if you keep a single stitch on its own layer you can duplicate it, rotate it and reposition it in any number of ways to help create different stitching configurations.

As usual, if you have any questions or want to make a suggestion about a topic you’d like me to cover, please don’t ever hesitate to “Message Me”.

Thanks for reading this week’s Tuesday Tip. Watch for my next post about creating a unique element using some of the tips you’ve already read over these last two weeks. If you want to stay informed about new posts, just click “Follow Me” to stay in touch. I hope you have a wonderful week!