The fabric is what you stitch on: how many stitches wide and tall your cross stitch pattern is, which aida you are going to sew it on, and what colour it is. Those three things give you the real size of the finished piece, so it is worth settling them before drawing too much.
You reach both from the general tools menu: the loom for the measurements and the fabric colour for the background tone.
The loom
This is where you set the size. There are three sliders: two for the width and the height in stitches, and a third one to choose the aida, that is, how many stitches fit in each inch of fabric. As you move them, Puntotek tells you how big the finished piece will be.
All three work in two ways, and it is worth knowing both because they save a lot of time:
- Dragging the strip along the bottom: put your finger — or the mouse — on the little row of arrows at the lower edge and move it left or right. The value changes as you drag, so it is the quick way to cover a wide range: from 40 stitches to 300 in a single gesture.
- With the two arrows: the left one goes down and the right one goes up, one at a time. That is what you want at the end, when you are already close to the measurement and looking for the exact number, which is shown large in the middle.
The comfortable way is to combine them: drag to get close and finish with the arrows. And this applies to every slider in Puntotek, not just the ones in the loom, because it is the same control throughout the application.
The buttons, one by one
New fabric
Starts a blank fabric with the measurements you set on the sliders. If the current work has unsaved changes, Puntotek warns you before leaving it behind.
Rename
Changes the name of the work. It is the name you will see in the file list and the one offered when saving or exporting.
x1 / x2
Choose whether each stitch covers one square of the fabric or two. Stitching over two is usual on high-count fabrics, and it doubles the finished size without touching a single stitch of the drawing: the same pattern, twice as big.
- Stitch x1: Each stitch covers one square of the fabric. That is the size given by the stitch count and the aida you chose.
- Stitch x2: Each stitch covers two squares. The drawing is the same, but the finished piece measures twice as much.
Centre
Places the cross stitch pattern in the middle of the fabric, sharing the spare margin between the four sides. Handy after enlarging the fabric, or when the motif has drifted off centre.
Trim the fabric
Trims the fabric down to what the drawing occupies and removes the spare. Useful when you finish, so the printed pattern has no blank pages and the measurements are the real ones.
Close
The cross in the corner closes the loom and takes you back to the canvas. Any measurements you changed — aida, width and height — are applied on closing. It also closes with the Esc (Escape) key, without touching the button.
- If you shrink the fabric: Puntotek warns you before leaving: it shows the current measurements and the new ones, and tells you that any stitches left outside will be lost. Nothing is trimmed unless you say yes.
- No help button: This is the only menu without one. This page is its manual.
The fabric colour
Changes the background the drawing sits on. It is not just any colour: it is a wide selection of the fabric tones that are actually sold — white, ivory, natural and many more — so what you see on screen looks like what you are going to stitch.
It matters more than it seems: the same cross stitch pattern looks very different on white or on natural, and pale threads can disappear on pale fabric. If you are going to stitch on coloured fabric, set it here before choosing the threads in the colour charts.
How big it will be
The sum Puntotek does is the usual one: stitches ÷ aida × 2.54 = centimetres, multiplied by two if you stitch over two squares. A 100-stitch pattern on 14 count measures about 18 cm; the same pattern on 11 count goes up to 23 cm.
- Settle the fabric before drawing too much: changing the aida afterwards does not redraw anything, but it does change the final size and the number of skeins you will need.
- Leave a margin of fabric around the drawing so you can mount it on the hoop and frame it later.
- If the pattern is a gift or for sale, trim the fabric at the end: the measurements in the PDF come from here.